selflessness

Good Soil

Today my son and oldest daughter decided that they would like to plant a sunflower seed. They asked what we needed to accomplish this task.  I responded that we needed to buy some potting soil.  My son asked, "why can't we just use dirt from the ground."  I told him that we could, but that the high quality potting soil would help that sunflower really grow fast and well.  

Many humans may think of themselves as seeds planted in mere dirt from the ground, but the reality is that we are all planted in high quality potting soil.  Whether we have been kind or not to this soil over the years is immaterial.  The potting soil is still there, the nutrients are in place, and we are ready to grow into the people we are designed to be.  None of us, no matter how poorly we have behaved, is planted merely in dirt.

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Who are We Supposed to Become?

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It seems that everyone is trying to find themselves.  The shelves at the bookstores are full of books telling us to find something, find someone, or ignore everything.  If we consider basic market forces, it stands to reason that all of these materials exist because there are many people who are struggling.  

"Accepting yourself" is not about accepting who you are today, but understanding and accepting who you are designed to become.  We are all intended to be on a journey of improvement.  However, many of us have veered down destructive paths. If you are on such a destructive path, you are drifting further and further away from the person you are supposed to become.

Left to our own devices, we are destined to slide down the wrong paths.  As humans we are simply not capable of avoiding the self-centeredness that generally results in a wandering spirit.  The truth is that there is a natural order to things, and the more we are focused on ourselves, the more we run afoul of this natural order.