By PL Chang on July 20th, 2011

How to Appreciate Life Through the Joy of Giving

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Taking time to reflect on our lives and appreciating what we have are two things that many of us rarely do. When we do not step back to observe and appreciate what we have, we usually take things for granted. It is only when we lose what we have that we realize that what we have been searching for our whole lives was right in front of us.

During this time of economic hardship, many of us are worrying too much about job security and money. What makes money so important that we pay attention to it more than our love ones. Money is not really a need but more of a necessity. Money does not really have any value. It is only a medium use for exchanging good and services. For something to have great value, it has to be in high demand, hard to create and essential for life to exist. Money is high in demand but this demand can dramatically change when its value drops. This is exactly what is happening to the euro and the dollar. If one day worldwide hyperinflation kicks in, all paper currency would dramatically drop and some would even become worthless. If this happens, a teaspoon of sugar would be worth more than a bag of money. These features makes the value of money more “artificial” rather than “natural”.

A major reason why we tend to value money so much is because we are conditioned from the day we are born to want more, need more, consume more, buy more and be good little consumers. Rarely do we stop to think about what we already have, starting with the gift of life, the power to create and the free will choice to live our lives the way we want to. The more we allow our society to influence us to want more so that we can fulfill what is lacking within us, we begin to believe that we are entitled to something, we are better than others or that someone owes us. Once we fall into this mind trap, we set ourselves for endless frustration. This frustration is caused by replacing unrealistic and untrue expectations upon life, others and ourselves. We can also get angry when life does not turn out the way we want or we do not get what we want.

When we believe someone owes us something, we start to lose our appreciation to the beauty of life. Giving something to someone and expecting something in return is one of the greatest self-sabotage games in the world. If we give to others and expect to receive something back and they do not pay us back what we desire, we often feel cheated, taken advantage of or owed. Giving should be done for the joy of giving alone and without expecting anything in return. When we approach life with this mind set, we do not feel cheated, taken advantage of or owed. Instead, we begin to appreciate life for what it truly is.

Giving for the joy of giving will help set loose the power of manifesting our desires into motion in a positive way. The more we give joyfully, the more joyful things we will attract into our lives. It is the Law of Attraction at work. Another way to attract more joyful things into our lives is to say thank you more often. When we say thank you more often to our love ones, it helps ourselves remember what things we have to appreciate. This action causes our energies to become more magnetized, attracting more joyful things into our lives.

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