what do you NEED to be happy?

 6



When we have achieved a level of comfort, then lose it, it can create a serious void in our lives. We may still  have the necessities, but not the extras that make life "worth living."
Or so we think.
As I age, I find that I don't NEED as much as I used to. I have clothes, food, a house...but I don't NEED every gadget to be happy. I have my books, I have music, I have the sun, the wind, the sounds of birds...what more could I ask for? God is so good to me!
Here is a story that illustrates what I am trying to say. It sure makes one think:

Wonder if any of you ever had the feeling that life is bad, real bad,…and you wish you were in another situation. Do you find that life seems to make things difficult for you, work sucks, life sucks, everything seems to go wrong….
It was not until yesterday that I totally changed my views about life; after a conversation with one of my friends.
He told me despite taking 2 jobs, and bringing back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is. I wonder how he can be as happy as he is now, considering that he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old-age parents, in-laws, wife, 2 daughters and the many bills of a household.
He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India……
That happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and was touring India after a major setback. He said that right in front of his very eyes, he saw an Indian mother chopped off her child’s right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother’s eyes, the scream of the pain from the innocent 4 years old child haunted him until today. You may ask why did the mother do so, has the child been naughty, was the child’s hand infected??
No, it was done for two simple words — to beg. The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child can go out to the streets to beg. I cannot accept how this could happen, but it really did, just in another part of the world which I don’t see.

Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a small piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, flock of 5 or 6 children swamp towards this small piece of bread which was then covered with sand, robbing of bits from one another. The natural reaction of hunger. Striken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries.
The owner is dumbfolded , but willing sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaf of bread (this is less than $0.25/per loaf) and spend another $100 to get daily necessities. Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate. For the first time in life he wonder how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25. He began to ask himself how fortunate he is as a Singaporean. How fortunate he to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice what isn’t, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of…..
Now I begin to think and feel it, too. Was my life really that bad?
Perhaps….no,… it should not be bad at all….
What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.

Comments

  1. In today's life, if we don't have over 20 grand in debt, we feel as though we don't have "enough." St Francis showed us that the only thing we need is the love of God and to enrich another's life. Why is that so hard to comprehend?

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  2. New iPhone coming out....do you really need all those apps?

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