Count Your Blessings . . .

         

Everything is a blessing. Everything.

I have recently been rereading Cherie Carter-Scott's work, "Ten Rules for Being Human." I don't know about you, but I love lists. Here's hers--it's simple but profound.


Ten Rules for Being Human
by Cherie Carter-Scott

1.	You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.
2.	You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life."
3.	There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."
4.	Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5.	Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6.	"There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."
7.	Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8.	What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9.	Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10.	You will forget all this.

It's true that we can assume that everyone is doing the best to get their needs met (even if we think it's messed up) and that we are doing the same. That's good news. I really truly know in my heart that everyone is doing their best--even if they piss me off, or disappoint me, or make me CrAzY (er) . . . 

I can think of many things that I've done that were pretty messed up (in other people's minds and in my own)--but those things obviously met a real need for me at the time. Usually, it was one of the super duper basics I needed, like being acknowledged, being accepted, being loved, being recognized and seen, or being appreciated and valued.

So, if everyone is learning their lessons (including us), we can trust, and FOR(ward)GIVE ourselves and others for our "failed experiments," as the Carter's states.

I don't know about you, but I am much, much harder on me(self) than I am on others. And, when I am harsh or judging about others, it's really a projection of ME onto them; otherwise, I simply wouldn't see it. (. . . not psyched to admit that one, am I?). This is a gift, because everyone in our lives serves as a MIRROR:RORRIM--that's how it IS--but we keep forgetting until we remember again.

Yikeys. Full circle.