My Own Perception: Episode 2

In last week's My Own Perception: Episode 1, I noted that this week, I would be sharing on my personal reflections around...

• "Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity."

My Own Perception is a series of blog reflections around my personal reading of these words that I am ever increasingly seeing as a representation of a personally adopted code of character.  So...

Generosity and Thankfulness

We live in a society that often times teaches and preaches abundance and positivity. I get it. I think both notions have their merit; and their dangers. Positivity can be toxic... and Emotional Courage must needs stand in its face. We must differentiate between Optimism and that kind of often times saccharine sweet positivity thing. Enter, "Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity." Please allow me to explain.

Upon my reflection on these words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá...

• "But there is something else: detachment. We can appreciate without attaching ourselves to the things of this world. It sometimes happens that if a man loses his fortune he is so disheartened that he dies or becomes insane. While enjoying the things of this world we must remember that one day we shall have to do without them."

... I picked up on the notion that one day we shall have to do without them. It speaks to the transitory nature of good and bad. Harold S. Kushner addresses this in his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Notions of abundance often can get construed as "fast food goodness"... if we simply but "manifest". When bad things happen, we are somehow doing "something wrong". We forget that good and bad happens; to all of us. Life happens. Grieving happens, and walks with us. We don't just order up a good life. Pain too is part and purpose. Detachment matters in this.

With Detachment, we feel but are not controlled by our feelings, we act rather than react, we resist the need to simply "fix", we free ourselves of impulse and craving, we listen and amend and live Soulfully. With Detachment, we are better able to live, do and be "generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity".

And yes, "We can appreciate without attaching ourselves to the things of this world."

My reflection on these first few words of Bahá’u’lláh above center on this strength that is Detachment. I sense inwardly that I am to understand that good things and bad things in this life are fleeting. "This too shall pass" applies to both. They are both but waves, high and lows, and in between. Of course we must feel, but not be attached. We can and must appreciate; and to appreciate is to add value.

Being "generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity", I think and offer and contend is about understanding that life is life. When we are prospering, we must needs be generous, Enter Detachment. When we are in adversity, we must needs be thankful. Enter, again, Detachment. Our spirituality, our life of spirit, knows that good and bad are good and bad, in this physical space, and are temporal. That does not make them any less good or bad. That does not mean diving into that toxic positivity. It means Optimism primed.

We live in a world that far too often celebrates "success" arbitrarily defined as celebrity, fame, fortune, and image. And we are too often fooling ourselves and others. This sense of pretend and pretense is, in part, the cause of much concern around mental health. Society's notions of success, abundance, celebrity, fame, fortune and image need be called out as BS. We get to define our Soulful success. When we stop chasing the wind and start being our own best wind, we find more fertile ground. We free ourselves of attachment, being genuinely generous in prosperity and thankful in adversity.

I will work on this notion of Soulful Detachment, Appreciation, and Optimism best manifested with being "generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity". I will work on letting it guide my living, action and conversations. I sense a more genuine and personal freedom coming in doing just that.

Next week, we explore... "Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor... "

Peace, purpose and prosperity...

Barry Lewis Green, The Unity Guy with Epic Engage.

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