EYES WIDE OPEN

Sometimes life takes you where you never expected to go. Sometimes strange twists and turns, and even unexpected obstacles, bring you to the most beautiful place you have ever been. Sometimes Life holds its gifts behind its back, hidden, until the very last moment when it delights you beyond your wildest imagination. I know this, because it is my life story.

My daughter and I recently spent three months living abroad. This was no vacation. We lived in a remote and very impoverished part of Siberia, in the dead of winter. Our mission in moving there was two-fold: 1. spend much needed time with her biological sister, and  2. volunteer at my daughter's former orphanage, home to 100 severely impoverished children.  

These past few months since we've been back, I have gotten many emails from people expressing their admiration and awe for what we accomplished there. To be honest, these left me feeling unsettled, because I know a truth it seems these admirers are forgetting -- we all have the capacity to do what we did. It doesn't take riches or power or even a plan. All it takes is Love. True love moves us to act. True love forces us out of our comfort zones, and that is the start of the very best journey of all. When we say 'yes' to the bigger picture -- I mean really say 'yes' -- I think the Universe itself claps its hands in delight. Love is that powerful.

It is so sad to see the world still wasting its time on 'bigger' and 'better' and 'faster' and 'shinier'. Marblehead is certainly not immune to this nation-wide disease. It doesn't make me angry anymore, it just makes me sad for the millions of people who are chasing after emptiness. It is such a waste of energy and time. None of it matters. None of it. Are you one of the many people wish the world's priorities were less skewed? Just remember - none of us has a right to complain unless we are truly doing everything we can to change it ourselves -- and I do mean everything. When Gandhi said  'Be the change you wish to see in the world', he was not envisioning a bumper sticker. 

My time in Siberia has opened my eyes to a great many things -- probably the greatest being my own selfishness. I don't want the things I wanted before this journey. Life has become so simple and so clear. When you cut away everything extraneous and you focus on Love and nothing else, there is a joy you cannot possibly imagine. Yes, the letting go is hard. Saying yes can be scary when you're trying to hold on to so much. 

It's time for an awakening. Our houses will be so much sawdust someday. Our clothes, our must-have ipads and ipods,  that vacation home you had to have or that sports car you couldn't live without  ---all of it is here, and gone.  But Love? Love does not perish. It does not decay. It can't, because it is the only true thing in this world. Love matters.