It looks very nice if we possess our favourite things. We all wish to gather more and more – our greed does not get satisfied with one possession and our list gets renewed, added to after every addition. If you too do this, you are not at fault. It is human nature – we are always fearful whether by tomorrow, we may be able to have it or not and we continue to struggle hard to get one after one added to our coffers. But the most grievous part of this process is that many times we do not get time or opportunity to enjoy our possessions. Either we expire or our possessions get useless in course of time.
True happiness lies in enjoyment. To enjoy things is not to possess them or to be possessed by them, but to use them. The joy of anything is hidden in the use of it.
If you deeply go through the nature of the things you possess, you will find that it is an illusion that you possess something. The properties of that something can not be controlled by you. In course of time, they would decay. You have the right to use them. You have purchased a number of plots of land – you can have title(s) of those plots registered in your name. You can have the movable properties under locks and tight security. But one day, you will have to give away or that will go away from your possessions in spite of your determination not to do or let to do so. Everything, even our body, our mind, our money is not ours. We get rights to enjoy them. We must enjoy them fully instead of keeping them idle for a long period.
Take it granted that everything with you is the gift by God to you for sometime to care for and enjoy the same prudently. If you do not do so, you can be deprived of. God has given us life to enjoy it. You are not supposed to build up a castle to live in for unlimited period – you have been granted some period limited by Him. Your castle will become a vast pile of stones, damp, gloomy and usually uncomfortable. After some time, nobody may like to live there then it would become a ruin.
Life is to grow like a garden. A gardener changes a bare patch of land into a place of trees, flowers, grass and fountains splashing into pools and singing birds and buzzing insects. Life is not a thing of stones for stones, but a thing alive for things, alive for pine trees and humming birds and you and me. We must live it actively with full of enjoyment. If God has put you on some troublesome paths, He may be asking you to correct yourself. A gardener knows what a garden is like.
No one owns the land. In a well-built house the landlord is merely a lodger-with rooms for a week, a month, a year or some years. Generations of mocking birds sing in the branch tops. Generations of moles tunnel the lawns, smelling out the grubs that live here too. The rabbits mock at the fences; the pokeweed lords it in the lot corner; the flower garden belongs no more to the gardener than the bees that sup the flowers. In the limestone of the walls are the remains of shellfish that swam here once and perhaps…. The gardener is content to plant his trees and not trouble himself as to who will like in their shade.
You may take the flower, dry it and place it in a glass case – but it is not the flower. You have only a bit of colored straw, slowly fading, slowly powdering. Keep it long enough and you will have only colorless dust. Things are not for forever. Things are like smiles and frowns that flit across the face of the Eternal. When a smile becomes fixed, it turns into a grimace. When a frown becomes fixed, it is just another wrinkle
.
To enjoy things is not to possess them or to be possessed by them, but to use them. The joy of anything is hidden in its use. Rows of dresses hanging get dusty in a closet in case you do not wear them for a long period. Tools may get rusty if they are not used. Books may get yellow and brittle with age because no loving hand fondles them or opens their pages. If none lives in, no house can become a lively home. What do you mean by keeping a shining plane in your tool chest? You may take it out and plane a board with it until the board is flat and smooth to be used.
To enjoy your possessions, you should ascertain what use you are going to make if you possess something. The joy is not there just to get a dress but to wear it to make your presence more emphatic or give it away to your beloved one or donate it to some needy person.
Similarly, joy is hidden in reading out the contents of the book, think over them and implement in your life. There is no real joy if you just purchase a book and keep it into your shelf. If you just keep, the book may become a decorative article – that will not remain a book as such. One day, termite will eat that book and you may get nothing. Things are not there for ever. You may hold on long enough and you had cast even the dearest thing away.
Corn is still not less on the earth because it gives itself for food. Sun still shines brightly, even after having given light and warmth to the earth for millions of years. You may make efforts to possess what you require. After you get it, you must use it for the purpose you acquire. Just collection does not solve the purpose, does not justify the collection itself.
Be Happy – Enjoy Your Possessions.