Do You Genuinely Appreciate Your Gifts?

How many gifts from the Universe and the Earth do you have in your life right now? How many of them do you genuinely appreciate, and why does this matter?

That first question isn’t meant to be a trick question, but in essence it is… because everything is a gift from the Universe and/or the Earth. We do ourselves a huge disservice by not recognizing or acknowledging this Truth.

Almost two decades ago, a friend sent me a garment unlike any I’d ever worn before. I told her that, and that I wasn’t sure how to use it. Her reply was, “If you can’t figure out what to do with THAT, send it back!” Her statement may seem strong, but it was important to hear. How many gifts do we receive from the Universe, and the Earth, that we don’t, initially (or ever), figure out how to use properly and, therefore, we don’t fully appreciate them? Imagine the Universe or the Earth making the same statement my friend did regarding anything that comes to you or that you currently have. Kind of amps up the message, doesn’t it?

We love our conveniences; and though we may appreciate them, our familiarity with them (as well as, perhaps, lack of proper guidance and training) may cause us to disconnect from deeper, true appreciation. Let’s look at a meal as an example, whether you prepare it or someone else does. Even if you say a blessing before you eat, do you really mean it or do you say it because it’s expected? And, is it a thorough blessing that allows you to merge your personal empowerment with your appreciation?

Here’s an example you might test for yourself. While you cook or before you take the first bite of a meal or snack, say silently or aloud: I give thanks to everything and everyone that contributed to this food being available for me. I give thanks to the Earth for providing everything used in the preparation and in the serving and eating of it. I give thanks to the molecules of this food for the nourishment they give to my body, mind, and spirit. I give thanks to every molecule of my body for using every molecule of this food to support my optimum health, well-being, and energy, while helping me maintain my ideal weight of (number). If you happen to forget until after you eat, say or think it then.

That last part about the weight maintenance may have surprised you; but how often do we eat something and rather than enjoy and appreciate the food, and state our truest intention about the nourishment, do we do the opposite? Far too often. There is so much, everything, really, to appreciate every day, every moment; but our own disconnect to genuine appreciation causes us to USE without grace or, worse, Abuse without conscience or awareness.

When we feel appreciated, we feel fulfillment and joy about giving. When we appreciate what we receive or have, we create ripples of fulfillment and joy outward, including to the Earth and the Universe. This is an expansive energy that is responded to in kind. We feel larger when we’re in a state of appreciation because, in spirit and expression, we are. Lack of appreciation contracts our energy, makes us smaller in spirit, self-absorbed, cut off from more. More awaits us. But appreciation is the language we must feel, as well as speak, in order to keep that line of communication and receptive exchange open and flowing.

The meal example is an easy one to follow; but what about everything else in your life, especially anything or anyone so familiar or routine in your life that you “forget” to appreciate its or their presence? If you think you’re too busy to appreciate in this way, maybe you’re too much about busyness because you don’t appreciate in this way.

Look around your home, office, life, relationships. If there’s anything (or anyone) there you have no true appreciation for, remove or exchange it as soon as it’s reasonable to do so. If your life, inner or material, is cluttered with what you really don’t want and therefore don’t appreciate, you may not be able to readily appreciate what you do have that you do want.

Please be cautions not to insert self-judgment (convincing/fooling yourself) by believing if you don’t feel appreciation all the time, you’re failing, so why bother. You’re building a skill and way of being, as you might a set of muscles. To reach full development takes time and practice. Know that any moment you feel the opposite of appreciation can become an opportunity (as soon as you’re ready) to ask right questions and to learn something that can assist you as you continue forward. Keep in mind that sometimes what you learn is what to let go of. Knowing this is something to appreciate. "Knowledge is learning something new every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day." -Zen Proverb

As you take such assessment about anything and anyone in your life, which you can do in each moment, hear the Universe say to you, “If you can’t figure out how to put THIS into proper use and appreciate it, return it.” It’s an interesting thought and an interesting practice to follow.

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

Does Your Attitude Have You Stuck?

Do one or more parts of your life make you feel like you’re wandering in a wilderness, and you can’t find the exit? Maybe it’s time to see this for what it really is.

Three definitions of wilderness in my dictionary are: barren, empty land; a large, confused mass or tangle; a wild condition or quality. Circumstances sometimes feel like a wilderness experience, that is, as one of the definitions offered here. But the most prevalent or consistent wilderness experience happens in our mind.

Your choice of thoughts and words are influenced by your attitude, and your attitude is influenced by your thoughts and words, a sort of yin/yang situation. Stay the same, and you travel in a circle or loop. Tweak this, and you leave the loop for the evolving spiral that can carry you forward.

Your words, which come from your thoughts, have power over you and what you attract. Your attitude not only attracts your experiences but perpetuates your circumstances. Ernest Holmes wrote: “You cannot heal anyone of his trouble, if it is the result of some mental attitude which he will not surrender.” Circumstances change over time, but our mind changes only when we decide to change it.

Most of us enter and exit wildernesses throughout life (wilderness happens to each of us), while others merge more than one wilderness into one big one and wander around in there for years or a lifetime. How long have you talked about, thought about, the same “old” things? How long will this continue? Do you really want things to change? Are you more committed to change or to talking about why nothing changes? That’s like complaining about your untidy home or office and never tidying it.

Those who look only at their circumstances and not their attitude complain often, because they don’t see (don’t look) beyond circumstances. Here are some popular wilderness-attitude statements: I can’t, because . . . (Different from “I won’t,” which is a choice); I know I shouldn’t, but . . .; It’s not my fault, it’s the fault of . . .; Nothing ever changes; I give up. People stuck in the wilderness, and that’s each of us at one time or another during our lifetime, tend to blame lack of progress on others or situations. Yes, stuff happens, and sometimes it can take a while to recover in whatever way is needed; but we can move ourselves out of and beyond such wilderness experiences sooner with an attitude adjustment. Stuff happens. Stuff will always happen.

Just as you may be proficient at looking at something negative and thinking it could happen to you, you can do the same for positive circumstances. Consider your thoughts. When you wake, what thoughts do you have? Or, do your thoughts have you? Are they thoughts of appreciation or of grievances? Your first thoughts of the day are akin to you choosing a healthy or an unhealthy breakfast, which influences how you perform for at least the first part of your day, if not the rest of it.
We have a spiritual power within us. We have the Law of Attraction. And, we have the God Force to assist us with anything and everything. What trips us up and keeps us stuck is that we want to see (insist on) a demonstration of improvement outside of us before we demonstrate improvement inside.

If your attitude doesn’t serve you, you have to decide whether you’ll surrender that attitude and take up a new one… or not. However, if you choose to keep an unsupportive attitude, also be willing to choose to own your choice and not blame others for how you choose to be. Tie this in to the fact that you prepare your future in the present.

How can you begin your exodus from a wilderness situation? Do what can, even if you think what you can do won’t be enough. Do this, and you’ll find the Creative Consciousness helps you with the rest, as is appropriate for you. Sometimes, what you can do is an action, but you can always do something about your thoughts, words, and attitude. Doing so is called your demonstration of your willingness to step out of your self-imposed wilderness or any wilderness you find yourself in. Such a demonstration is powerful; and the more you practice such demonstrations, the more your power grows.

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

What Key Ingredient Is Needed for Joy?

You can choose joy as easily as you can choose any emotion. But you won’t enjoy your life as much as you could unless you include one key ingredient.

Do you enjoy what you have: your key relationships, material items, spiritual awareness and connection to Source, personal traits and characteristics? If you can’t enjoy who you are and what you have now, how will you enjoy even more? This may seem contradictory but it isn’t. It reminds me of two thought streams: “Wherever you go there you are” and “I’ll be happy when…”

You can choose to enjoy on purpose. What’s the key ingredient that helps you do this? Appreciation. If you genuinely appreciate something or someone, you’ll enjoy or find joy in it or them. Appreciation and joy are magnetic and attract more. If “more” seems elusive, check your level of appreciation for what you are and have. It’s likely a quart or more low. You can simplify your understanding of how Law of Attraction works by remembering appreciation attracts more to appreciate; lack of appreciation attracts less to appreciate.

Here are some common joy stealers we all come across:

*We may be good at saying Yes to please others when what we need to be good at is saying No to please or nurture peace in us.

*We may be controlling, manipulating, or workaholics, which is about trying to make life and others do what we want, whether what we want is aligned with the highest good of all involved or not.

*We may not be readily aware of what causes us to feel appreciation and therefore joy, so we don’t deliberately seek to experience more of those things.

*Our primary motivation is to get, with little to no motivation to give.

*We work for a paycheck only, with little to no thought of bringing our light into the workplace or to be a blessing to at least one person each day.

*We form relationships with others, maybe even marry someone, so they can “make” us happy, ignoring the fact we’re responsible for our own happiness.

*We forget that making others happy will bring us joy.

*We speak more negatives than positives; we don’t stop to think or choose better words before we speak.

*We believe being joyful contrasts with being caring; believing that with all that goes on in the world, we have no right or reason to be joyful.

The day I decided to write this article, “stuff” was hitting the fan, so to speak. Was I enjoying it or able to find joy? Did I even feel like looking for joy? No. But my own words were fresh in my mind. About two hours into the “stuff,” I heard chirping. On a shrub outside my window was a splendid cardinal. THAT brought me joy! I watched it for a few minutes then went back to what I was doing. The cardinal visited again; and again I got up to watch it and express appreciation. The cardinal’s visits reminded me that although some events are far from joyful, reasons to connect with appreciation and joy are all around us, even amid “stuff” happening.

We definitely have to pay attention to what we say to ourselves. This is crucial. We can convince ourselves that something is true: positive or negative. One brings us reasons to be appreciative; the other, to perceive there’s nothing to appreciate.

Lack of appreciation causes us to miss the good, the beautiful, the blessings. It causes us to shut off the stream of well-being we could enjoy. It causes us to give away our joy and, instead, live angry or upset with or about everyone and everything or something a majority of the time. And all the while, this is a choice.

Appreciation eases or displaces anger and other negative emotions and nurtures joy or, at least, peace. Appreciation is assisted by what we tell ourselves. Too few make the connection between what we tell ourselves, how we feel based on what we tell ourselves, and what we attract because of this.

We do not control all external circumstances, but we can manage our inner environment. What we do about this affects us most of all, but also affects those we interact with. When we lack appreciation, we steal our own joy; and inadvertent or not, we affect the joy of others.

Look at your key relationships, your material items, your spiritual awareness and connection to Source, and your personal traits and characteristics. Find what you appreciate and find what more you can appreciate about these.

If you want more joy, be more joyful. If you want more joy, be deliberate about your appreciation. State your appreciation. Choose a state of appreciation. And know that you will need to renew this commitment to yourself and your joy every day, and maybe several times a day. Put this into practice and you’ll begin to notice it not only gets easier to do, but more natural to do than not to.

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

Trained Thought Is More Powerful Than Untrained

Can you always practice right thinking? I don’t know. But you CAN always practice adjusting your thoughts to right thinking.


The thing to know – the “trick,” if you want to call it that – is to KNOW that you DO and CAN influence the Law of Attraction in your regard and in each moment… with right thinking. Law of Attraction is receptive, not reluctant. We imagine; and the Law creates in accord with what we imagine. Because of this we are wise to keep in mind these words of Ernest Holmes: “There is a great difference between conscious and unconscious thought for trained thought is far more powerful than untrained…. Even a small amount of right thought puts to rout that which is wrong.”

We sometimes – or often – practice what Holmes called “unconscious, or innocent, malpractice” in our life. “It is malpractice because it is the wrong use of thought; innocent because it is not intended to harm….” His example was of a mother’s thoughts and comments that her unwell child was a poor, little sick one. Such feelings are understandable, but we’re often unaware of the result of that kind of mental action, and how it imprints our energy field and the energy field(s) of those it’s directed toward.

There are other ways the mother could use right thinking about this, starting with the realization and affirmation that the child is a spiritual being first and foremost, not “just” an unwell one. This doesn’t mean to ignore the health condition. Treat it! Do what needs doing about any condition. But know it’s a condition. “Disease is a fact but not a truth; it is an experience but not a spiritual reality,” Holmes wrote. Try this: replace the word “disease” with any word that describes what you consider a negative condition, and see the truth of his statement.

We could say we do this form of malpractice over one or more areas of our life, even after we’re informed about it. We do this about present-time matters; but each time we repeat thoughts silently or aloud about the past, we re-imprint those experiences into our energy field. We re-experience the past, emotionally, once again, forgetting that this level of thought attracts similar – or more of the same – events to us. We CAN remember that we can CHOOSE to imprint positive, as well as negative memories into our energy field.

What is right thinking, and how can we practice it?

Consider this thought from a broader perspective: We experience from life what we think into it. So, it’s important to have a constructive foundation for your thinking about the “fact” of an experience, as well as the deeper spiritual truth about it. Right thinking provides answers, solutions, and resolutions. It provides the power to heal, whatever that healing may represent. Retrain yourself to think what you prefer to think. Do the same for how you prefer to feel and be – about any and every experience, with the intention to enhance your conscious awareness, not just your experiences.

It isn’t just about thinking right thoughts, though; it’s Knowing the Truth about this… its influence and effects. Know your mind. You see a reflection of your mind when you look at your experiences and when you look at your responses to your experiences. Your state of mind influences your external experience and determines your experience of the external. Your state of mind is the result of what you think, what you know, and what you think you know. And, this can always be enhanced. Observe, learn, and retrain thoughts as needed.
Don’t judge your experiences, because they are there to help you to awaken your mind and heart, to awaken conscious awareness, to awaken your knowing of the Law of Attraction and to use it for your good and the good of others… from this day on. Know that your word – thought, felt or spoken – becomes Law, don’t just intellectualize this. You attain KNOWING by observing, by linking your thoughts to what you experience. To judge any of this would be to shift your focus away from where it’s meant to be.

I’ve been programming my mind with the nightly thought that I have one or more dreams that cause me to have clarity, focus, enthusiasm, and joy about every endeavor I engage the next day. One morning while making coffee, and still in the alpha brainwave state where the mind is easily programmed, I found myself “entertaining” negative thoughts. I stopped myself and acknowledged that if I’m going to ask for assistance, then I have to follow through on my end of it. It just doesn’t work to request one thing and think, feel, or do the opposite, which negates my request. I also keep in mind that endeavors and events may require me to use only one or two of these at a time, rather than all four, depending on what’s going on. But for a general daily approach, I find it’s a good one for me.

Use right thinking not just when you’re in a good mood, but especially when you’re not. I’m not saying you’re to ignore or disregard your feelings and emotions, but if you understand what I’m saying here, you’ll understand why right thinking is important to YOU. Your feelings and emotions are messengers, but you have to choose what to do about the messages. Will you choose wrong (disempowered) thinking or right (empowered) thinking? Consider the results you desire.

The more untrained the thinking, the more inclined a person is to let emotions rule the behavior, instead of allowing conscious awareness to lead the way. You can feel - as you are designed and meant to - without letting emotions run amok or allow them to run your behaviors. Information provided through feelings, blended with right thinking is a powerful combination. It can lead you to experience peace with poise.

The more we connect with spiritual Reality, and not just the “fact” of an experience, the greater our opportunity is to shift – either the outcome based on the “facts,” or our deeper understanding; though, both may shift as a result. This helps us shift from wishing to Knowing, usually knowing a greater truth. It is the difference between mental force (which doesn’t work) and mental acceptance (which is based on deeper conscious awareness).

Are your responses to any matter yours or learned ones? Would thought retraining benefit you? Trained thought is more powerful – and more relaxed and relaxing – than untrained. Appreciate that you can choose to retrain yourself into right thinking, that you can adjust into right thinking as and when appropriate. Appreciate that trained thinking opens you to a different, improved experience of your life, no matter what it temporarily appears to be like.

Any knowledge that stays on the surface has not taken root. For it to take root, you have to put it into practice. You CAN think yourself into greater personal power and a better experience of life and “facts.” It’s a good practice.

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

Which of Your Selves Is More Sacred to You?

You have a spiritual self and a material self that operates in the world. Which do you nurture first? How’s that working for you?

You have a “foot in two worlds.” One foot is in the spiritual world, which is where you come from, where you return to, though, that world stays with you through your human experience. The other foot is in the material world that is heavily influenced by society. Which world is more sacred to you? Are we meant to choose one or the other?

Society tells you that it is the authority about who you are and how you can define yourself. It tells you what you deserve based on its material-world view. It tells you what you can have and what you have to do to get it. Basically, society “allows” you to be, do, and have based on its viewpoint that changes with the wind. And that wind blows in a circumscribed area. This means society decides, describes, and defines limitation for you. It convinces you that validation comes from outside you; that it comes from society, which is comprised of far too many others to know whom to please and in what ways.

Your spiritual self recognizes there is a divine order at work at all times, and that the Divine is without limitations. It recognizes that this divine order means there is a divine purpose in and for all things. The more engaged with your spiritual self that you are, the more these aspects resonate within you and ripple outward into and through your life experience.

Your spiritual self is aware of and uses – to the degree you allow it – intuition. This means you can tap into, flow with, divine order and purpose, as often as you allow yourself to do this. In this state of Mind and Being, you don’t always need to understand what the Divine is doing, or why, when, or how – until you do.

In the spiritual world, you have experiences that are personal and valid – and validated by Spirit, experiences that many in society wouldn’t validate as “real” or worth pursuing. But, kindred others who follow a spiritual path would understand.

Each of us always has a choice as to whether the material or spiritual world is more sacred to us. This doesn’t mean we are to shun the material world. After all, we live in it. We use it and contribute (hopefully) to its existence. The material world is part of our sustenance just as we are part of its sustenance.

But, which world nurtures you first and most? Which one encourages you first and most to be, do, and have in the ways you desire? Which one encourages you first and most to be your authentic self? Which world is the source of your authority? Which one do you usually choose as your source of authority in and of all things?
Society is like your body. And though the body is an amazing compilation of cells performing specific tasks in order to support the “whole,” it is nothing – it cannot exist – without consciousness. It performs and functions even better with conscious awareness.

One of these worlds holds the frequency of love in greater, natural abundance and asks you often, What is sacred to you? The one that is more sacred to you is the one you will nurture first and most.

We too often hold onto what keeps us unhappy or discontent or unfulfilled, because we may have to really look at ourselves and change something. Society has predominantly taught us to value and rely on the known, according to its definitions of acceptable “knowns.” This is why the unknown frightens us so much – more than it needs to, more than it was meant to, especially when it comes to knowing ourselves.

When you’re clear that your spiritual self is more sacred to you, you can let go of some of that fear, or at least explore the unknown knowing you can rely on divine order, divine purpose, and on yourself as an integral part of that larger aspect you come from and return to. This also means the energetic frequency you transmit as a result of your expanded Knowing, to others and to Law of Attraction, will create more experiences you desire, as well as allow you to experience all of life and yourself more in the way you desire.

Albert B. Simpson said one of the signs of a spiritual life is enthusiasm. This makes sense. If you feel connected to and in flow with your spiritual self and the spiritual universe, how could you lack enthusiasm, at least a good deal of the time? Trying to appease society or even ego only, can drain or deplete enthusiasm. You can be enthusiastic about what you do in the world, but that feeling is amplified if inspired and supported by enthusiasm that springs naturally from spirituality.

Harmony is meant to exist between the two worlds, but this is to be a result of your spiritual development that allows you to contribute authentically to society, not by you or your spirituality being dictated to by society. Your spiritual self gives you your voice in your life and in the world. It encourages and inspires head-and-heart alignment in decision making. It leads you into integrity.

Through the sacredness revealed through spirituality, we can extend sacredness to the Earth and those we share it with. We open the doorway of the future we desire when we realize and take ownership of our spirituality in the now. Inner guidance is the most profound and effective tool, method, or system you could ever use, especially as the foundation of your Mind and Being. Spirituality is the keeper of these ways.

If you want your experience of both worlds to keep you in a state of appreciation, make your spirituality the world you nurture first, then bring the result of how this influences you into the world. This allows you to make both worlds a sacred experience, in the way this was always meant to be for us.

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

Reduce the Drama in Your Life and Become Your Own Healer

Do you make a genuine effort to process through and beyond negative emotions? If you don’t, and these emotions get stuck in your energy field, life can become one drama after another.

You’re here to live and to learn from your day-to-day experiences. You can allow your experiences to be toxic to you energetically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and bodily, or you can transmute your experiences into opportunities, especially to expand conscious awareness and Knowing.

Ernest Holmes wrote: “Life is what consciousness makes it,” meaning our individual consciousness, followed by local and global consciousness, based on the individuals who comprise it. If you reinterpret or shift perspective about what happens – your experiences that is, on an ongoing basis, you become your own healer. Then you can become a healer-helper with others to assist them to become their own healers.

Just as with physical wounds, we are meant to heal our inner wounds, not cause them to linger or fester, and rob us of life force. Through this healing, we are meant to increase our understanding and compassion for wounds, the wounded, those who wound – even if we have to choose to no longer associate with them, and better understand and appreciate the dynamics and importance of healing.

Getting stuck in anger and resentment keeps us wounded and leads us to be stuck in drama mode. Our bodies get addicted to the chemicals released when we experience any emotion often, positive or negative. As a result of chemicals released often in response to negative emotions, we experience a predilection, or addiction, to trap anger and resentment in our energy field. We imprison ourselves with them, like cell bars on our psyche. We watch the fun side of living and creating from within our enclosure, too invested or embroiled in dramas to let them go.

Imagine that energy field around you. It’s with you everywhere you go. Picture all those angers and resentments like various sizes and shapes of debris – like debris and trash thrown into a stream – that snags and hangs up and blocks the flow. We are designed and entitled to feel unpleasant emotions because of the vital messages ALL of our feelings convey, but not to give negative emotions a permanent home in our energy field, which then becomes a field of dramas, past and attracted. Getting stuck in drama keeps you from perceiving, feeling, knowing - a Bigger Picture, a Larger Truth – best examined, processed, and integrated from a spiritual perspective.

An important part of what you’re here to do is to expand your conscious awareness, which includes changing inefficient thinking and emotions that keep you from living your best inner and outer life experience. The more you do this – make these changes – the more Law of Attraction can cease to create matching scenarios to what’s negative in your energy field. Think back over the last three to six months, or longer, and ask yourself how many unpleasant scenarios were either repetitions or variations on a theme.

If your dramas tend to repeat or drama seems to be how your life experience goes, you can pause and really look at this. You can remind yourself that your thoughts directly contribute to your manifestations, just as your perceptions and interpretations of happenings contribute to how you experience them. You can look at what needs to change. Start with your thoughts and emotions then move this change outward, into your life, based on what you learn about yourself.

You may have to release addictions to ways of thinking, perceiving, believing you need to or must feel a certain way, behaviors, and actions you take. You may have to flip what you believe about reality. You may have to see that you create and co-create unpleasantness to get your attention on something within your belief system that needs to change so that you can experience more of the unsullied you that you came here to be, and share what you came here to share rather than live holed up inside yourself… to choose wholeness instead of holed up in drama.

Some events and moments in your life will be dramatic (it isn’t about the false belief that if you just do something the right way, you’ll never have a problem ever again – it’s about practicing to the point of knowing you can manage yourself well – trust yourself to act from integrity - through any such times – and learn from them, whether just irritations or truly dramatic). Maybe your initial reaction will be to respond with more drama or from your conditioned drama response. However, if you practice pulling back to re-vision, re-perceive, and re-frame, you can then approach such experiences from a what-productive-thing-can-be-done-or-learned mode. This may be outward, but it will always be a seed at the inner level first.

The seed of who you are – your best self and best life – is inside you, possibly buried under a lifetime of beliefs that misdirect you, which in turn misdirects your energy causing you to “misdirect” Law of Attraction. Begin the practice of noticing this. Appreciate that you can choose to change what’s in your energy field, which will change your life, how you perceive drama, and how you respond to it.

Understand that what you feel – your feelings – are messengers and not to be controlled. Your emotions are what you do with or about what you feel, and can be managed. Though some people avoid it, processing negative emotions is necessary, but for the purpose of traveling through the process and arriving somewhere, not processing to the point where it becomes a way of life, with no progress made. People addicted to drama tend to allow identifying with and processing dramas – or not processing them at all - to replace healing and living.

Make an effort to cease anticipating future experiences based on any negativity from your past, or creating, by default, negative experiences that are within your control. Appreciate that every experience holds something for you to see and learn about you. Appreciate positive potentials and possibilities so they become probabilities. Believe in possibilities – without a need for drama, and your reality changes – starting at the most important, vital place – within you.

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

How Important or Easy Is It to Choose Better Behavior?

It’s become too easy to forget or to ignore the Golden Rule. We can choose to follow the behavior examples we see on “reality” shows or we can be examples of better behavior.

A light rain - more like a drizzle - began to fall as I sat reading on my sofa. It was ideal: a good novel, a soft rain, and quiet. Then a young boy walked by my window and stopped. A second young boy joined him then a third and a fourth. The first boy saw the birdseed on my window sill, commented on it, and pretended to eat it. The first boy was also speaking loudly, as though his friends were down the street instead of near him. The third boy said, “Be quiet. Someone may live here.” The second boy rapped on my window. He and the first boy laughed. The fourth boy was leaning against my front door and kept thumping on it. They were in no hurry to go elsewhere. My quiet had been disturbed.

I opened the door and looked at each boy in turn and said to all, “Hi. How’re you doing?” They looked surprised, but they didn’t run. The third boy, the tallest, said, “We’re staying out of the rain.” I didn’t point out that he was the only one standing in it, I just said, “That’s a good idea.”

Most of the birdseed had been knocked off the sill when the first two boys had seated themselves on the brick, and I couldn’t see the water dish. “You saw the birdseed?” I asked. “Is the water dish still there?” The second boy said it had fallen, which really meant it had been put or knocked down. Without my asking, he picked it up and put it back on the sill.

I told them the birds sing to me and I feed them and make sure they have water. The second boy said, “There’s a bird’s nest in there.” He pointed to a gray mass draped on limbs and I told him it was moss that I’d placed there, that I would love if the birds used it for their nests. He asked what moss is and I asked if he knew what pineapple was. He did. I told him that although it didn’t look like it and you couldn’t eat it, moss was a member of the pineapple family.

The fourth boy, silent up to this point, said, “People used to use moss because they didn’t have toilet paper.” (I did mention they were young boys; and, I did tidy his actual statement.) I told him that moss had also been mixed with mud to make insulated walls for houses. He repeated his statement about moss, which he probably found more interesting and definitely more amusing than architecture, and I added that people once used corncobs, as well, which got their attention and them into animated conversation.

A woman’s voice called out. It was the mother of the first boy, poking her head out of their front door. She said something to him in Spanish. I smiled at each boy and said, “I’m going back to what I was doing. Stay dry.” They lingered for about a minute after I went inside then quietly went their separate ways.

I could have yelled at them to get away from my house, and for disturbing the birdseed and water – but I also recall being that age and believing any land with grass growing on it was public domain. I could have scolded them for discussing a nature’s-call matter, but instead gave them more info. I could have gritched about this to others, not to mention replayed it in my mind as a reason to be angry or upset. Instead, I have a much more pleasant memory to replay. They may never mention our several minutes together to others, but I could just as easily have given them a reason to talk unfavorably about me to their families and neighborhood friends. Instead, we engaged in a friendly and somewhat informative chat.

I’d shared with them about exchanging something (seed and water) with the birds for their songs, something unique about moss, and some pre-modern hygiene trivia. They’d reminded me that we really can choose how we engage with others, that courtesy doesn’t have to be a lost or forgotten or ignored art. And, that we more often than not find what we look for – in ourselves, others, and life.

They gave me the opportunity to practice the Golden Rule… to remember that each of us wants to be recognized as a member of the human family, whatever our age… to remember that children and adults benefit from positive examples, even if we never see the results. That in each and every moment we are an example of something for someone – or can be.

Interestingly, using courtesy is one way to simplify our lives a bit. It’s far too common for people to fly into fits of temper over matters that don’t really merit it, an act which usually creates an even bigger and unnecessary disturbance. It’s far too easy to forget courtesy can go a long way, with strangers, associates, and especially people we’re in our closest relationships with. Too easy to forget the Golden Rule is a facet of Law of Attraction: treat others as you wish to be treated… because you WILL be, if not by them, by others… because we wear our energetic vibrations like invisible clothing, which is “seen” and responded to by others and considered an instruction by Law of Attraction.

The boys gave me an opportunity to enter a state of appreciation that I can remember common courtesy should be used as often as possible and is rewarding on many levels. That use of it more often than not creates outward ripples. Courtesy costs nothing; and the significant returns can be great, starting with how we feel about ourselves, as well as the memories we create for us and others.

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer