Meditation for March 3rd, 2016
Giving Back
In all the self-help, spiritual path dogmas, giving back is a common thread. We receive help, we learn to stand on our own two feet and then we turn around and help others. Some say we have to give it away to keep it. Others say we get ten fold back from what we give away. We join soup kitchens, volunteer at schools and give money to many great charities that are really helping others. We feel better about ourselves.
The truth is you may not get anything out of helping others. You can put all your time in trying to help someone get better and they just try and take advantage of you. This actually makes the person unwilling to help him or herself and doesn’t ever stand up on their own two feet. They just sit there like an NBA player after executing an unsuccessful flop, staring at the referee and waiting for his teammates to help him up.
People really try to help others because, like heroin, they helped someone successfully once and got a real warm feeling inside of them and now they continuously help others trying to capture that first high but now only feels disappointment and jealousy of those who get to do whatever they want on their own time. They even try to slow down the service work and takes a water coloring class at the local community college, a art that this person has always dreamed of learning but never had the time to learn, and one of the classmates suddenly has some sort of crisis. Our landscape painting hero’s hair raises up on the back of the neck, pupils dilate, stomach begins to vibrate and before you know it this selfless do gooder is now over by the classmate smelling in the sweet smell of crisis and offering help. Watercolor supplies now just sit in the closet collecting dust and wasted dreams.
A lot of times people who try to help others spend their time lecturing and giving advice instead of doing anything helpful or just being a sympathetic ear. They just want to fix things. You know the stereotypical mother losing her mind trying to create the perfect wedding for her daughter? And the daughter just wants this blasé simple thing while the mother wants this Shakespearean fantasy ballet, and it just doesn’t seem to be working? Yeah? That’s the fixer person who just spends his or her time trying to fix every problem that he or she encounters, but usually leaves it just as broken or makes things worst because since they spend all this time trying to fix other people have no experience living a life of their own.
Then there is doing all this helpful tomfoolery only to not be thanked. What a travesty! Being a compassionate human and not being honored for it. You are just doing what people do, why do you need special recognition? They are still working for their Boy or Girl Scout badges. They do the service in the view of others for the acknowledgement. Just go to a grocery store and listen to white soccer moms discuss what they do in their spare time. They almost compare scars, but instead of scars it’s volunteer and helping that mother who just sucks at life.
The truth is we get nothing out of helping others because it is just part of being a human. It isn’t this secret feel good magic from ancient texts, it is just stopping and reaching down and helping someone up. Not for a thank you, not for a high or a magical mood changer, but just because a dog would do the same thing if it could.
Prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of thigh piece,
where there is gossip, let me explain the psychology of the gossip.
Where there is injury, let me bring my best codependent self.
Where there is mistake, I shine a bright light on that mistake and at the same time as comforting the mistake maker; make sure that it is known that I am a mistake corrector.
Where there is doubt, let me bring hard-hitting opinions and let the person know that he or she would be an idiot to not be sure about something.
Where there is despair, let me bring my self on a pedestal that only hard work will get someone out of that dark place. Stop whining and stand the %#@* up.
Where there is darkness, let my lifestyle and my personality is the light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring the jokes and how sunshine-y my life is and how easy it is.
O Divine Master,
That I may not so much be annoying, need other people’s help for myself when I actually go through stuff, always be the consoling person no matter what someone is going through, always have an answer even if I don’t know the answer and disguise it under the false flag of love.
For it is from getting we get stuff,
It is by forgiving myself that you can still owe me amends,
And it is by you dying that I get to have an excuse to be moody, impotent and center of attention for the rest of my mortal life.
Amen.
Craft
Here is a quick way of helping your friends and family through life’s obstacles. Write the person’s name, the problem they’re having, what you would do if you had that problem, how you are going to make that person do that.
Example:
Bill W.
Mr. Brown is flirting with his wife.
I would talk to Mr. Brown about respecting my boundaries and me when it comes to my wife.
I wouldn’t tell Bill W. what t do; I would just talk to Mr. Brown myself.
Karen C.
Has cancer
I would research all the possible treatments, cures and preventive methods I can find on the Internet.
Send literature of things that are too good to be true to Karen so she knows she doesn’t have to go through chemo and all she has to do is rub cannabis butter on her breasts and voila!
Kyle Q.
Can’t seem to stay in a relationship for long and seems to get into a lot of relationships.
I would talk with my friends about why this may be. I would point out all of Kyle’s flaws, dissect all the relationships by finding the common thread, type of woman he seems to be dating and discuss these topics for many nights in a row.
The next time Kyle is single suggest maybe he stay single for awhile and if he gets into a relationship ask Kyle if the woman he started dating is as good as he can get.
Jason B.
He came to with amnesia, but quickly realized that he used to be a highly trained and scientifically endued super spy for a secret government black ops program named Treadstone. He had done some wet work that the higher ups at Treadstone don’t want Jason to remember all his missions so they send other super spies to kill him.
I would accidently be kidnapped by him, believe his crazy story and then fall in love with him.
I would die so he could find the anger and feel like he needed to avenge my death and take down a dangerous government program that invades our privacy and has no oversight.
Goal
Help others at your own risk.