Drop It
And collect your present
The white ceramic mug has a heart shaped handle. There’s a silhouette of a yogi’s rear profile sitting cross legged, shaded with pastel rainbow colors. In black letters above the mystic’s head it begins Let That and below his/her seat it finishes Shit Go. What a wise and wonderful gift! Since I tore the doggy Christmas wrap off last weekend, I’ve been enjoying morning coffee with a right-sized reminder to live in the present.
A few days after receiving the Zen liquid vessel, I was drinking coffee and checking my email when I came across this story in a newsletter from Niklas Göke:
A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to cross. The young woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side.
The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows not to touch a woman.
Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across the river, placed her gently on the other side, and carried on his journey.
The younger monk couldn’t believe what had just happened. After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them.
Two more hours passed, then three, finally the younger monk could contain himself any longer, and blurted out “As monks, we are not permitted a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?”
The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”
And then today, while drinking from my Let That Shit Go mug, I read this in Fifty-Two Lessons for Life by Napoleon Hill and Judith Williamson:
Why not decide right here, right now to forgive someone who is in need of forgiveness from you? Make your mind up to forgive them and be done with it. Don’t carry the burden any longer. Call the person, write a note, or pay them a short visit for the purpose of setting the issue right between you. And then just do it.
Don’t you feel a lightness of being after you have finished? Well, that’s just the loss of the additional weight that you have been carrying around with you unnecessarily until you decided to forgive. It’s a nice feeling to lose all those psychic pounds of stored resentment, right? And, you didn’t even have to change your eating habits! Forgive and forget to raise your spirits!
There’s a theme here, right?
Many years ago, an aunt sent a short poem along with her Christmas card. I’ve never forgotten it:
Yesterday is history — Tomorrow is a mystery — Today is a gift, and that’s why it’s called the present.
The secrets to living a joyful life surround us every day. We tend to forget the important stuff. Perhaps that’s why we get so many reminders.
