Reflection, courtesy of Aaron

today Aaron put the below lines on his blog:

There are lessons in life you live
And others you simply learn.
My lesson is that the best gifts,
Are those that give back in return.

In this world we also learn
Some people have less,
Some people have more.
The most important lesson though,
Is to never keep score.

They really struck me. May be because I had to read them a few times before I really understood what they meant. Maybe because I couldn't help but to reflect on them. In the second stanza, I take it as though it is important to remember that what you physically have is not everything. It is more important to be happy and to have people whom you love and who love you in return, than to own everything in the world. Someone who has everything may be alone in life and be unhappy while someone who seemingly has nothing could be the happiest person ever. There is a song by Toby Mac called “Lose my soul” where one of the lines is “I don’t wanna gain the whole world and lose my soul.” I think this also relates to the verse because it shows that even though you may gain everything you ever wanted in life, you need to be aware of what you are giving in return. If you must give up your soul and your beliefs and your happiness to have the whole world, is it worth it? I personally think that it isn’t. What good is the world if you have no way to enjoy it? What good is it if all you have is the world but there’s nothing left within you? I would much rather have only myself than be an empty shell but have everything. If we begin to keep score of what people have, we negate the importance of their inner selves, of their souls. By concentrating on the materialistic world rather than the mental and emotional world how can you feel happiness? Is happiness equal to having a lot of things? Or is it when everything you have is name brand and expensive? As far as I have experienced, it is near impossible to get true happiness from anything but another human being. I may get satisfaction from material things, but it is the people around me who enable me to have feelings, who enable me to feel happy. Without those people I would be nothing, I would never be happy, no matter how many things that I bought.