Thoughts on the New Year

While we celebrated New Year’s Eve last night, many people in the provinces hit by Typhoon “Seniang” went hungry and shivered in the cold weather after they lost their homes.

If you have anything to spare for these unfortunate compatriots—food, used clothing, blankets—send them to the Philippine Red Cross.

Don’t send them to your local government or the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) as your goods could be repacked in boxes with markings like Donated by Congressman Tal Fulano or Governor Armando Mapapel or Mayor Tomas Epal.

If you send food donations to your local government, they might end up in some stores in Metro Manila.

If the DSWD receives your donations, it may rot in their warehouses.

But if you give to the Red Cross, your donations will surely reach their intended beneficiaries in the least possible time.

Sure, the Red Cross will place your donations in packages with Red Cross markings on them, but so what? The organization is neutral, nonpolitical and nonsectarian.

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I’ve already written the preceding paragraph before but it’s worth mentioning again:

In helping others, we shall help ourselves for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us. Only those who learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life’s deepest joy—self-fulfillment.

That statement is not mine. It was a text message sent by a friend who gives me inspiring messages every day.

Another inspiring message I received from the same friend and is worth taking to heart this year is the following:

The greatest path towards fulfilment is not knowing what we want and how to get it, but in knowing what we have and how to share it. There is no greater joy than giving joy to others, no inspiration than inspiring others, and no greater gift than a selfless heart.

As best-selling author Deepak Chopra says, “The more you give, the more you will receive, because you will keep the abundance of the universe circulating in your life.”

Here are more of Chopra’s gems of wisdom in his book, “Seven Spiritual Laws of Success”:

“Practicing the Law of Giving is actually very simple: If you want joy, give joy to others; if you want love, learn to give love; if you want attention and appreciation, learn to give attention and appreciation; if you want material affluence, help others to become materially affluent.

“In fact, the easiest way to get what you want is to help others get what they want. This principle works equally for individuals, corporations, societies and nations.

“If you want to be blessed with all the good things in life, learn to silently bless everyone with all the good things in life.”

What Chopra is saying is that whatever you wish for upon your neighbor invariably gets back to you.

If you wish your neighbor good health, then you will be healthy.

But if you wish him ill, you will soon be visited by illness.

As another best-selling author Neale Donald Walsch said in “Conversations with God, Book I”: “You and your neighbor and God are one.”