Accept Life’s Gifts

Transcript

Welcome beautiful thinkers and thank you for thinking beautifully.

Sometimes I think that the reason life is so hard or one reason is because we find it difficult to accept when life is actually throwing us a bone.

We find it difficult to accept something nice when someone says something nice to us. Or even when they say “thank you” sincerely and dearly we might say “Oh, it’s really nothing. No worries.” Or we say “de nada”.

But we don’t really accept that they’re thanking us when they’re presenting this attitude.

And that’s why I like the expression “It’s my pleasure” or “con mucho gusto” because that is at once accepting the gratitude and amplifying it by introducing this level of delight.

Actually “I’m glad that you could ask me for help and glad I could make your life a bit easier.”

When somebody pays us a compliment sometimes we’ll say “Oh, it’s really nothing”.

There was a really funny scene in the TV series version of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where Arthur Dent saves the day somehow protects the space ship with his quick thinking and Zaphod Beeblebrox says “Hey man that was amazing what you did there, that was awesome.”

And Arthur Dent says “Oh no, that was really nothing”. And Zaphod says “Oh, well if it was nothing never mind. Don’t worry about it” and he walks off.

Arthur Dent is left there saying “Oh no, it actually was something.”

This is kind of cultural thing. Like a cultural false modesty. We don’t want to accept a compliment we want to play it down.

When someone says something nice to us can we just accept it? Maybe we don’t even believe it. Maybe we say “Thank you” or “That’s really nice that you noticed that” or maybe eventually we will believe it.

I remember a story that my friend Luke told me we was studying philosophy and theology at the time. And he had a friend who was a catholic. It’s a little strange to me but sometimes in Catholic rituals they say these words “I am not worthy.”

I don’t claim to fully understand the context of it but I think those might be some dangerous words.

What happened with Luke’s friend is she sort of started having a peak experience or religious experience. If you’re Catholic or Christian you might describe it as feeling the holy spirit touching you.

Of course Maslow would refer to it as a peak experience one of these feelings of unity or feeling like you’re being cleansed. Feeling that you can be pure in that moment.

And that woman in part of her Catholic conditioning dropped to her knees and said “I am not worthy”.

But she was worthy, right? She just as you just as I are all splinters of of the divine. And just as the divine is worthy of praise, we are worthy of praise.

When someone starts to say something nice to you or you start to have a beautiful feeling you don’t have to turn away from it.

It is yours, it’s for you. It’s waiting for you and you can have it right now. When something beautiful happens why not say “Thank you”? Why not say “that was really nice?”

I remember I was in the club and I smiled at this young lady and it was like she was confused by it. It was like she couldn’t process the fact that I had smiled at her and she responded aggressively.

She was like “why are you looking at me like that? Why are you smiling at me?”

And I was like “oh, okay. I guess maybe I won’t talk to you.”

How often might the world be showing us really wonderful things but we’re just not ready to accept them because we can’t believe that things would be so nice, so simple, so lovely.

How often might your own mind, the deepest part of yourself, be telling you things that are really wonderful? Telling you that you deserve to be happy. That life is joyful and that you despite your flaws are actually doing pretty well in this world.

Embrace the praise from yourself, from others. Accept life. Accept life’s gifts.

Thank you so much for reading, thank you for staying grateful and thank you for thinking beautifully.