Others being wasteful 

is no excuse for us to be as well. 

Welcome to the Age of Plenty.

Odds are, if you’re reading this, you have the good fortune to participate in our current consumer age. Offering a proliferation of products and hitherto unknown convenience, this age offers cheap throw-away goods paired with ease of disposal. A winning combination!

Use a disposable razor a few times, toss it.

Get a cup of coffee on the way to work, drink the coffee, toss the cup.

Subscribe to a service that expresses a one-meal box with all necessary ingredients, fix dinner, toss the box, packaging for each ingredient, cold keepers, unused ingredients (now or later).

Give a child a toy, watch it break, toss the toy, buy another.

Modern convenience.

Easy to get. (Think Amazon).

Easy to toss. (Think curbside trash pickup.)

What else is disposed of? Money. Good fortune. Finite resources. Any real sense of appreciation. The happiness of those doomed to follow the most wasteful generation of all time.

Instead of trying to surpass others, 

help them to succeed.  

We seem to have reached the point at which everything we do entails competition.

For me to gain, someone else has to lose. Others have to buy my product, not yours. Like me more on Facebook than you. Agree with me, not you.

Clearly, people don’t grasp the pervasiveness of reaping what they sow. The problem is compounded by most people believing they have only one lifetime. So all they can hope to know is what they might remember from earlier in their life. Tragically, this is like looking at what I did in the last ten seconds and basing all my decisions on that brief instant of time. Short-sighted, to say the least.

Having learned about rebirth and causality, our knowing what causes we need to have planted to sell that product or have others like us on social media or agree with us, we can relax.

What a relief!

Now we can stop trying to outdo everyone and, instead, help them accomplish what they hope for by learning how to plant the right seeds.

Graciousness: a timeless virtue.  

What a lovely, old-fashioned word.

Graciousness brings to mind ladies in hooped skirts and men in top hats out for a morning stroll through the park. Yes, well, that’s an unfortunate image. Why? Because graciousness is the unselfish offering of courtesy, being accommodating and kind, and respecting others and being at ease with oneself.

It’s not a virtue we should ascribe to a past age.

We need it today if there is to be a tomorrow.

Let’s fast-forward one of those couples to today. Fully kitted out for their morning jog, smartphones tucked into their own armbands, and earbuds in, our couple is busily making calls to get an early start on the day. In their world, our world too, there’s no time for “graciousness.” Really?

There’s no time to let someone give his opinion before offering yours?

No time to let someone in line ahead of you?

Compliment a co-worker on a job well done?

Play with your child?

No time?

There’s always time for the things we want to do.

Always.