To Walk on the Earth

The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth.
~ Chinese Proverb

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A friend sent me this quote in response to a message about a Saturday I had planned, with a list that read "grocery store, drug store, library, post office, bank, etc., etc., etc." My friend said that maybe the quote would help me get through my pedestrian day, and it did.

So much of life is taken up with the mundane tasks of daily living. Buying and preparing food, then eating, cleaning up and taking out the garbage. Washing dishes. Mowing the yard. Writing checks to pay the bills, buying stamps, and mailing them off. Putting gas in the car. And on and on, day after day, ad infinitum. We read about other people accomplishing great things and we wonder how they have the time, or the energy. We envy them their lives, seemingly floating higher than the rest of us.

I remember a quote that I found a long time ago, and now I don't remember who said it: "Sometimes the greatest courage is not to die, but to live." At the time I was going through a period in my life where I felt that just living was a struggle, and it really spoke to me. It made me feel like my little life had meaning, that even though I couldn't seem to transcend the things that were holding me down, just the fact that I kept on living was an accomplishment, that there was bravery in accomplishing the tasks of daily life.

And I think that is very true. We need to realize that the daily events of our lives have meaning. We raise our children, take care of our elderly parents, give a certain portion of our income to charities that do good works in our name. We volunteer if we can, give of our time and ourselves. But beyond that, the small things that we do every day can enrich other people and make it possible for them to live their lives in harmony.

We do many things during the day without realizing their impact on other people. We'll never know if a smile given to a stranger made that stranger realize that he was not alone, that there might be a reason for living after all. Certainly the small things we do for our children in the course of the day will affect their lives for years to come in ways we can't even dream of.

We need to realize that our lives are not small. We do the things we have to do, we live our lives. We take care of the house, the yard, the children, our family. We pay the bills and go to work, and in doing so we're keeping the wheel of life turning. Most of us will never accomplish great things in terms of the larger world. But within our own world, we all accomplish great things every day.

You may be capable of great things.
But life consists of small things.
~ Deng Ming-Dao