MEMORIES

What are your happiest memories?











Are they of personal achievement in job or hobby? Are they of moments shared with loved ones and friends, or are they of moments when you were alone and for some inexplicable reason happiness and joy arose unbidden in your heart?

I guarantee that the older you are, the more your happiest memories are likely to be those shared with loved ones or the unexpected onset of joy and happiness when alone in some beautiful place. I think when we are young the highlights of our lives tend to be closely linked to material things. At first we would remember our first bicycle or our first cat or dog, or Christmas because of all the gifts. Later we would have happy recollections of achieving promotion at work or seeing the company we founded expanding successfully.

Ladies tend to remember things to do with family more than we men do. They will always remember their wedding day, the birth of their first child, the first steps taken by the baby and its first words. Men focus on more practical, less romantic memories mostly. However, as we grow older, apart from the thrill of remembering the birth of our first grandchild, the best memories will be of activities involving children, grandchildren and other family. After retiring, we have a little more time to look at the world around us, to really appreciate what a beautiful place it really is; to notice how some people have this wonderful knack of being able to say and do exactly the right thing at the right time, whereas others seem so wrapped up in themselves they obviously care nothing for those around them.

One of the great benefits of growing older is realising one does have time to appreciate those things that really make a difference in our lives: To understand that it is people and feelings that matter and not things. It demonstrates, I believe, the growth that has taken place in our souls over the years since our birth. Our character is shaped by everything we experience, good, bad and indifferent, as well as by the people we meet, especially those who teach us to understand things that have always been a mystery. That can be a simple as the dawning of light as one particular teacher touches something in us so that suddenly we know the intricacies of mathematics, or science, or grammar; Things that until that point we could not understand no matter how hard we tried; or it can be an old relative or friend teaching us how to recognise the footprint of a rabbit in the snow, or the difference between a mushroom and a poisonous toadstool.

As we grow older too, our inner self asserts its knowledge, often without us being consciously aware of it. Because the inner self knows we are moving closer to the time when we will return to that world of the mind and of thought known as the spiritual world, it influences us to place greater store on things of the mind (and I do not mean things of the intellect here) and the emotions because those are what we take with us. It is the emotional and spiritual response to everything we experience on earth that helps, along with our treatment of others, to build our character and influences the light that we generate from within our soul. That light is what will determine our dwelling place when the time comes to “go home” again.

Try to create as many loving memories as you can, while you can. Respond to the world and the people around you – but in as loving and as positive a way as possible - whether you are young or older. Allow people, situations and the world of nature, whether in town, city or countryside, to uplift you; to help you see and feel the joy that should be inherent in all lives. Above all allow them to let you see and feel how everything is connected to everything else. The lesson life on earth has to teach us is love vibrates everywhere, if only we will look and that despite the actions of humanity, natural law ensures everything is in balance at all times.