The world keeps moving.
Your thoughts keep moving.
Life keeps moving.
But wisdom often arrives…
when you don’t.
PAUSE FOR CAUSE
Take a moment.
Just pause and look around the room you are in without adding to or taking away from what you see.
Choose any object and let it become your world for that moment.
Shift your attention elsewhere and another world appears.
Pull back and once again you see the bigger picture.
Notice what is happening and how you are not only able to observe it…
but participate in it.
Welcome to life.
VYING FOR ATTENTION
With so many distractions, thoughts, emotions and ambitions competing for our time and energy, we often forget to let the miracle of life register and receive its due respect.
When I say take a moment, I do not mean seize the moment.
I mean allow the moment to have you.
Allow it to reveal what it has been trying to show you all along.
You are part of something much larger than yourself.
The following may help us see it.
CONTRAST
Contrast is defined as being strikingly different.
Why then are there so many contrasts in life?
While considering that question, notice something else.
You were designed to receive and experience those contrasts.
And from contrast comes another powerful gift:
Choice.
One of the greatest dynamics ever given to humanity.
STEADY MOVEMENT
When we encounter contrast, it prompts us to respond.
It influences us.
Shapes us.
Challenges us.
Benefits us.
We possess the ability to create through preference and selection.
No two experiences are exactly alike.
And none of them ever stand still.
STEWARDS OF LIFE
We naturally gravitate toward what creates well-being, satisfaction, safety, productivity and usefulness.
Not just for ourselves…
but often for others as well.
Nature does the same.
Plants.
Animals.
Insects.
Each stewarding life according to its design and ability.
Take a moment and observe them.
For lesser life forms, they perform brilliantly.
ALL LIFE KNOWS TO LIVE
It appears that every life form on this planet is engaged in a never-ending journey.
A quest to fulfill its purpose.
Carry out its function.
Improve its condition.
And live fully within the moment it has been given.
Some do this better than others.
But all participate.
RIGHT REWARDS ITSELF
As human beings, we stand in a unique position.
With greater awareness comes greater responsibility.
And with greater responsibility comes deeper rewards.
Choosing the right way…
righteousness…
produces outcomes that often reward us immediately and then continue rewarding us afterward.
It is almost as if goodness itself quietly encourages us:
“Keep going.”
And this is as it should be.
PROFITABLE?
There are paths in life that satisfy a need without satisfying the soul.
Pause there for a moment.
A goal may be reached.
An acquisition obtained.
A desire fulfilled.
Yet something deeper remains untouched.
The cycle completed…
but the marrow missing.
You may possess the thing…
without ever receiving its deepest reward.
SEEK THIS
Therein lies one of life’s great mysteries.
Human beings have thoroughly tested the pursuit of quantity.
More food.
More possessions.
More pleasure.
More experiences.
More everything.
But the question remains:
Is it fulfilling…
or merely fool-filling?
Take a moment and seek your own answer.
BE STILL
This is why I ask you to pause.
You can accomplish almost anything if your heart and determination are fully engaged.
If the heart leads, it receives the heart’s reward.
Passion drives the bus.
Completion brings closure.
And closure often delivers deep satisfaction.
A type of stillness.
A quiet place filled with hidden rewards.
STRIVING TO LIVE?
If we rely only on raw power and determination, we certainly feel alive.
Achievement does that.
Participation does that.
Success does that.
But do those feelings last?
And if not…
must they constantly be repeated and maintained?
Do we spend our lives striving to live…
or learning how to live?
COMING SOON
As the journey continues through successes, failures, lessons and choices, another question eventually arrives.
What remains?
We ourselves begin diminishing as we prepare to leave behind everything we worked so hard to understand.
What did we truly gain?
What was our real investment?
And what became the actual profit to the inner self?
VANITY
Was it a life well lived?
A life practiced in moderation and consideration?
Or a life spent gathering everything possible simply because it could be gathered?
Vanity has a voice too.
Take a moment and listen carefully.
Then take another moment.
And another.
Until you begin seeing the point.
TAKE A MOMENT
How can everything acquired here travel beyond here with you?
Perhaps it cannot.
Perhaps the answer lies elsewhere.
Perhaps everything is on loan.
Perhaps every possession, experience and opportunity was given to teach us something deeper about what truly matters.
What is truly worthwhile.
What is truly eternal.
Take a moment.
— Richie
Pearls for the Soul
when you feed the soul, you feed everything.
https://pearlsforthesoul.com
Been expecting you