Imagine you’re at the beach, enjoying a beautiful day. Something sparkles in the sand. You stoop to pick it up; it’s beach glass.
Turning it over in your palm, admiring its soft, rough edges, you tell yourself stories about its journey, then tuck it away as a good luck charm.
You keep walking. Another glint, and another—beach glass everywhere. Before long, you’ve got a collection. Your pockets are full and heavy.
At first you picked up every piece you saw, but now you begin to discriminate, picking only “good” pieces.
Your attitude changes, beach glass becomes mundane.
You stop picking it up. Eventually, you stop noticing it.
Occasionally an outrageously gorgeous or unusual piece catches your eye. And you bother picking it up. But the rest lays ignored and unappreciated.
Abundance
We tend to ignore daily abundances—being able to walk, breath freely, speak freely, or access fresh water.
Instead we expect abundance to show up like a game show host: Congratulations, your-name-here! You’ve just won a schmazillion dollars, a castle, a unicorn and your own private planet!
Yes, sometimes abundance shows up like that—big, loud and splashy.
But mostly, abundance lays silent on the beach of our lives, waiting for us to pick up or at least notice it.
When we ignore those daily gifts, we feel lack of abundance, lack of connection, lack of love.
So go ahead, look for outrageous abundance—and enjoy it when it happens—but also give thanks regularly for your simple gifts.
Take a moment each day to recognize the abundance of waking up without pain, for example; for living in a safe place, being in contact with those you love, or simply having enough coffee to start your day. That will make you feel endlessly, and constantly abundant.
