Day Ten....Finding My Way.

I started this journey with an idea mind and have found that it has turned into something so much more then I could have every conceived.

I wanted to change my life.
I wanted something more.
I wanted meaning.
I wanted purpose.

What I've discovered in the past ten days is all this has already happened.
I just needed to stop for a moment to see this.

I'm a pretty simple chic whose very complicated.

I just want to be happy.

I used to believe that if I could just change the world.
To make others act the way I wanted them to.
To rid the world of things I labeled wrong.

I would be O.K.

But it wasn't the world that needed to conform.
I had uni-laterally made the world at large a victim of my own expectations. In the end I was miserable and the world went on exactly the way it always does.

In perfect synchronicity.

Gandhi said,

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."

I never really fully got the full meaning behind that statement..... but now I do. It's not about slinging what I believe or trying to sway others to what I think the world should be. It's just about doing my part as a human being to be what I would like to see more of in the world.

Love.
Kindness.
Generosity.
Patience.
Laughter.

If there was total perfection....the creative juices would never flow.

I would never look to re-create myself.
I would never strive to be more then I was a moment ago.
I would never explore all there is to be revealed.

I was what I term a "Bagel" girl for many years.

I hated it.
I felt embarrassed.
I felt unworthy.
I felt that I was too educated to be doing "that" type of work.

But I wasn't.

I missed the message that appeared to me daily.
I missed the opportunity to be more of what I wanted to see in the world.
I was so caught up in myself that I couldn't see the power I held.

A lot of older people would come in every single day.
At the same time.
Order the same exact thing.
Sit all by themselves staring out the window.

Shadows..they were shadows.

Most of them had been forgotten.

I started to see them as more then "pain in the ass" old people.
I started to see pieces of my own loneliness reflected in them.
I started to see they too wanted the same thing I wanted in life.

For someone to notice them.
Say "Hello" to them.
For anyone to let them know they mattered.
That they existed.

I felt the same way.

I started to make it a point to go out of my way for that extra smile.
I started to give them the love I wanted.

I ended up with quite a little following.
They waited for me.
They told me I was never allowed to leave the job.
They thanked me for taking the time to show I cared.

Initially I didn't.
It was more an act of "I feel bad for them"

But it wasn't them I felt bad for....it was me.

I miss them.

They taught me so much about the kindness and compassion that I desperately needed in my own life......in order to see more kindness and compassion in my world.

The world didn't have to change, just my part in it.

A man by the name "Rev" once told me,

"You are the message for the people God brings before you."

And I am.

Today I decided to smile and say hello to each and every person that crossed my path.

Who hasn't had their heart warmed by the gentle kindness of a strangers smile when they needed it the most?

Some were pleasantly shocked and stopped for a quick exchange.
Others were just freaked out and gave me weird looks as they scurried by. (I do live in NY)

Either way I know that today I was......

Love.
Kindness.
Generosity.
Patience.
Laughter.

I was the change I wished to see in the world and strangely enough the world changed.

Until tomorrow,

Mighty