Someone?

Have you ever come across some occasions where you wish that someone could do something to the situation?

A few days ago, while watching a documentary series, they were featuring countries such as Vietnam, Mongolia and other 3rd World countries where the children are being exploited to work in the bricks factories, child prostitution or the rubbish dump to earn a living. I was thinking to myself why can’t someone help these children? In my heart, I was wishing that someone could be there to help them.

At that moment, a thought arises that why can’t that someone be me? It occurs to me that we often wish for things to happen by someone else’s effort and all we do is sit back to “watch the show”. Why can’t we take some actions and be that someone?

Realizing what a bum I am, I look up the internet and happened to find World Vision, a charitable organization actively involved in community projects in these 3rd world countries and they also have a child sponsored program.

While I could not be physically there to help these people, I donated a sum of money to World Vision to support the initiative they are working on. I really admired the real angels who are volunteering their time to help out in these projects. They are the true someone. At this point, I am still not the true someone, but at least I take an action to contribute instead of wishing that someone could do something.

Hopefully, there aren’t many bums like me around. With Christmas just round the corner, it is a good time to open our heart and share our generosity. Why not take some actions and be someone today?

Our greatest gift to the World

I was browsing the web sometime back when I came across Steve Pavlina’s blog. He talks about the need to define our life purpose and the importance of being congruent. In his article on Living Congruently, he wrote:

Alignment comes down to working on these four questions until they all produce the same answer:

• What do you want to do? (desire)
• What can you do? (ability)
• What should you do? (purpose)
• What must you do? (need)

Beautifully written. When we live congruently, our heart, our mind, our body and passion will be aligned in the same direction and it is easy to achieve fulfillment in every area.

Steve says that his life purpose is to serve and help people. When I saw his life purpose, I thought it is such a wonderful purpose to have but what do I have to help people? What do I have to give? I can’t have an answer. Frustrated, I put the thought aside and went on to do other stuff.

The questions are always on my mind. After a few weeks of questioning myself, I happened to listen to a talk from a spiritual teacher, which is totally enlightening and refreshing to me. Here is what he said :

We came with nothing
And we will return with nothing. We can’t take anything with us when we leave earth.
Since we can’t own anything and can’t have anything, what can we do with our life?
The only thing we can do with our life is to give it away. That is where we can find our purpose of life.
Giving away doesn’t mean giving our money or material stuff that we have. It means serving. Serving everyone and helping everyone whenever we can. That is our life purpose.

Indeed, for it is from giving that we will receive the most. This will be our greatest gift to the world.

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
-Kahlil Gibran-

The Best Way

The best way to benefit others is to reduce our selfish mind.