Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Ultimate Gift.

I was lent a movie by a very good friend called the Ultimate Gift. (See it if you haven't.)

It goes through 12 gifts.

The Gift of Money
The Gift of Problems
The Gift of Love
The Gift of Laughter
The Gift of Work
The Gift of Today
The Gift of Dreams
The Gift of Learning
The Gift of Family
The Gift of Gratitude
The Gift of Giving
The Gift of Friends

And essentially, if you balance all of these in your life, you will get the Ultimate Gift of happiness. You know I truly believe in this life, you can have it all. The biggest limitation in your life will be yourself and that conversation you have in your head about what is realistic and possible.

Some of these 'Gifts' I believe I already have. The gift of work, laughter, money, gratitude, and friends for instance. I APPRECIATE THOSE GIFTS!

But it showed me the areas I need to work on to make my life even better and wholesome. The gift of dreams, today, problems and family are big targets.

What does it mean about the gift of dreams? Today? Problems? and Family? Well. I don't want to ruin the movie here. SO STOP READING IF YOU INTEND TO SEE THE MOVIE. :)

The gift of problems. I would argue that the gift of problems gives you another gift. The gift of strength, resilience, and a sense of self. It is here when you go through adversity that you find what you're really made of. A BAD situation is a bad situation. It is a given that everyone deals with this. But imagine what that situation becomes when you deal with it clear headed, without the blind fury of rage, and you ask yourself, what is the solution to this issue? How can I break the cycle and move past the bad situation, for my own sake and others? Am I tough or am I suffering? I always choose to be tough.

Oh the beautiful gift of family. There was this really cool exercise that I've done before. Basically, we got to peer in the eyes of strangers before we got to know them, and over the course of a 4 day weekend, we would periodically look at each others faces, again and again. The same lines were always said: "Look around at the faces around you and in front of you." I would look around, and I saw so much heart in each person's face. "Are these the same faces you saw initially?" And the answer was always no. I asked myself why. I believe it's because those pre-judgments, those assumptions when you first meet someone, are ALWAYS indubitably WRONG. Not wrong like... +/- 2 margin of error, but I'm talking, completely wrong on the grandest scale. I've met people who I've type casted, who turn out to be people I trust the most to this day. I can't argue against 20 years of life supporting that thesis. The same goes for my family. I'm starting to really see them fully. See their faces. See their depth and their rationale for the way they do the things they do. I just have to keep in mind to use my Gift of Love to make sure our relationship progresses the way its been.

I think I'll continue on the Gift of Dreams and the Gift of Today, ironically tomorrow. I've got to sleep in order to seize the day!

2 comments:

  1. So I just checked and that movie is available on Netflix. So I'll be watching soon. It's in my queue!

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