Mid-week Inspiration,                                                                                        

The human species; we are filled with such potential for grace, for love, for joy.  We are filled with such potential for pride.  On the one hand with our good works we can reach out and help those in need; we can do such great works to bring peace and harmony.  On the other we can be so unconsciously ignorant. 

It is such a wonder to witness even the smallest amount of those great deeds of the individual life, for they don’t very often get spread across the tabloids and fill the televisions.   Those smallest of actions go unnoticed and yet they are huge in the overall pulse of this wonderful species. 

Today I would like to call attention to the things that were never done; I would like to acknowledge the fellow who never cut down those three trees in his front yard to pay for that one time vacation to the tropics or fix up the three rooms on his ‘heritage house’. 

I would like to acknowledge the person who refused to put her money into mutual funds because some of those companies were involved in weapons development or food industry in third world countries.  I would like to acknowledge the person who gave up the promotion because he had enough money, authority and recognition; that spending time with his three children was the greatest true opportunity for wealth he had.  I would like to acknowledge the person who chose not to just throw that piece of trash on the ground, rather putting it in her purse until she came across a trash can.

You see it is far more important in our evolution as individuals and a species what we do not do than what we do again, for not doing is an act of change, of inner change.  Before we can develop a new pattern we have to first let go of the old pattern. 

It is well known from the work of Alcoholics Anonymous that a key step in becoming sober is the quitting, not just of the habit of drinking but also the habit of association.  We must sever our association with the people and activities that continue to define who we have been.  This breaking of habits or patterns takes not doing; not swearing at that ‘rude’ cop or attendant, not inflicting punishment on the child who doesn’t agree with us.  We must choose not to go to those places that invite the old behavior.  ‘Not being’ is the most challenging step to being a better person (where better person is defined as the one we would choose to be). 

We are so often so absorbed in what we must do to change that we forget to notice what it is we are doing that defines who and where we are. 

There are thousands of self improvement guru’s and workshops available to the one who wishes to make changes.  They will tell you what to do; exercise, eat ‘right’, say affirmations, take action and so on, all good things. Yet key to the real changes is what we choose no longer to do.  The key is in catching the old pattern and saying “NO” when our whole being is screaming do it.