A Living Celebration of Life

I spent a lot of time in my youth and in my 20’s feeling bitter, believing a lot of people were

handed a much easier life than me. My bitterness came from a feeling of scarcity. It seemed

everyone was richer, better looking and more loved. My youth was a painful time.

We have all experienced feelings of vast abundance and of extreme scarcity. The interesting

thing, is the circumstance associated with these feelings don’t seem to hold the same weight as the way they actually make us feel.

A homeless person can find a hundred dollars on the street and feel incredibly wealthy for a

short period, when in actuality they have so little. We can be audited by Revenue Canada and

live in a nice home with food to eat and a closet filled with clothes and feel completely

destitute.

There are people who commit suicide who believe they are not actually loved, yet they have

hundreds show up in mourning. We can be surrounded by people and feel utterly disconnected from them, leaving us feel completely alone.

When someone we care about dies, we have all had thoughts like; “I wish I could have spent

more time with them, or I wish I could have told them I loved them one more time.” Even if we

did spend more time with them when they were alive, or told them we loved them, we would

still have these thoughts.

There can never be enough conversations, hugs or kisses. Never enough money, never enough love because we always want more. We all want a better life for our ourselves, our families, friends, and even for others. Wanting more, drives us as humans to do more, to love, to try harder, to invent, learn and grow. It drives innovation and makes us do better.

There is a thin line between wanting more, and not having enough. Both of these similar

thoughts drive how we experience the world.

Not having enough feels like scarcity, grief and guilt. Wanting more feels like inspiration and

joy. It is so easy for us to slip from one to the other. The divisor is gratitude.

I see it in everything; people don’t like their bodies, homes, lives, or relationships. So often we

let our thoughts drift into that realm of scarcity and the outcome is never a positive one. When

our thoughts turn from wanting more to not having enough it seems to loop leaving us drained, afraid and unable to feel better. It takes a lot of work to change that one spinning thought.

My loop is often that there is not enough time. It drives anxiety and prevents me from actually

getting more done. I find myself in my bedroom watching endless episodes of serial killers on

YouTube, which definitely doesn’t make me do more or feel any better.

When I realise that this is happening, that I’m having these thoughts, I have to take a moment

and say to myself, look at what you have. You have a body, a home, food, a brain and beings

who love you. All of these are things are nouns. The only thing that matters is how I choose to

feel about them. It is so important to acknowledge our thoughts and practice mindfulness. This is the difference between dreading each day or celebrating it.

Written by Kari Peters

Edited by Amy Setka