| One of the things that I find quite fascinating is that | | | | ourselves off from the infinite stream of well being. |
| every one of us is readily displaying our connection to | | | | When we are generous, we are always in touch with |
| life purpose in every moment. If you pay close enough | | | | the interdependence of all life forms. My sense after |
| attention, you can easily gauge how awake, generous, | | | | listening to so many people order their drinks is that |
| and present a person is to their life, even if you only | | | | many of them appeared to be talking to the employee |
| catch a quick glimpse of their face or hear a brief | | | | as if they were a machine. It was like that person was |
| comment that they have made. As my acupuncture | | | | no different from the big order board that they talked |
| teacher so wisely said, 'Everyone is showing you all | | | | into. I was left with the unsettling feeling that so many |
| that they are all of the time- you just have to have | | | | of us feel separate from our own humanity. If we can't |
| your senses open to perceive it.' | | | | recognize the humanity of the person filling our drink |
| My wife and I had both gone through the Starbucks | | | | order, the very one who is taking their time to help us |
| drive through this past week on separate occasions. | | | | get what we want in that moment, then when can we |
| We were both somewhat shocked by the behavior of | | | | do it? |
| several of the drivers as they were placing their | | | | This weekend, I watched the movie Peaceful Warrior. |
| orders. It wasn't anything terribly overt, but there was a | | | | While I liked the book much better, I did like the theme |
| definite quality of rudeness and entitlement in the way | | | | of Socrates helping Dan to see that there are no |
| they were placing their orders. For instance, if the | | | | ordinary moments. Every moment matters. In fact, |
| Starbucks employee would ask, "How are you | | | | most of life is comprised of seemingly mundane |
| today?", the customer would not even answer the | | | | encounters and interactions, such as going through the |
| question, instead just kind of impatiently placing their | | | | Starbucks drive through. As much as anything else, |
| drink order. | | | | how we relate to these moments will determine how |
| Generosity, which is one of the main attributes of | | | | capable we are of accessing and expressing our life |
| purposeful living, always begins as a subtle kind of | | | | purpose. |
| energy and then extends out to our actions. The | | | | You can start practicing generosity right now. Like |
| premise here is that generosity is part of the | | | | anything else, it really is a practice. Next time you |
| purposeful person's makeup. It is not reserved for | | | | interact with a customer service person, take a |
| special occasions. In every moment, we choose how | | | | moment to really feel their humanity- no cynicism, |
| generous we are. If we deny generosity to the | | | | impatience, or hierarchy. Indeed, every single day there |
| Starbucks employee, then in that moment, we are | | | | are countless opportunities to practice generosity. |
| denying ourselves life purpose. We are cutting | | | | |