Quite often when I listen to the news these days the outlook on so many issues is a rather bleak and pessimistic one. The economy is entering a recession, global warming threatens to change the face of planet earth and violence and crime are on the rise, not to mention terror attacks when you go on a vacation outside of Disneyworld.

Of course I am exaggerating a bit, but you get my point.

The second aspect I want to touch on in this post is the glorification of the past by many of us, because we somehow misremember and selectively delete all the bad and only keep the recollections of rosy days in our mind. Last year everything was better and 10 years ago, ‘Oh My’ gas cost only 35 cents and nobody would talk back to you if you asked them to pick up a piece of litter in the street.

So here is my question: “Are things today really progressively worse? Have we as a society lost the fabric of decency, respect and mutual appreciation?” I think not!

As I was driving home from work I always go through a part of downtown Vancouver that is called the Eastside, and unlike Manhatten, in this case eastside is not where the top real estate values and zipcodes are found.

It’s more of an area where police have a hard time dealing with drug issues and petty crimes as well as homelessness and vandalism to people’s property.

So as I enter this part of town, I am thinking what a warm and dry day it is and how nature is coping with the lack of rainfall we have had for about 2 weeks here. Now I know that this may sound crazy if you live in Southern California, but 2 weeks without rain is a big deal in Vancouver, considering we get about 200 days of it per year.

I drive by a row of newly planted trees that are very dry looking when I spot a rather rough looking individual mucking about with a container they are carrying out of an adjacent Starbucks. It turns out that this homeless man actually took the time to use his water container and ask at Starbucks to have it filled up so he could provide water to the row of trees that are in the street. The glance of caring devotion he had for these young trees was something you would normally see when a mother tends to her child.

As I am instantly feeling a warmth and comfortable feeling in my heart, I paused and thought about what I just saw back there. This man was more connected with creation and cared more about a city tree than he did about collecting pop cans or getting in line at the nearby soup kitchen to care for his own dinner. Instead he provided for mother nature what she couldn’t provide for herseelf at this point.

The key point to me is not the isolated act of caring or kindness, but the underlying proof it provides to show that small acts are still happening, that they are indeed a lot more common than we think.

I also know the other side of karma, for I have experienced it myself in cases of charity. Most people are very sceptical about giving to a beggar in the street for one reason or another. It may be that they are uncomfortable to be solicited for money. Or maybe they believe that even if they gave any change, it would only be wasted on alcohol or illegal drugs rather than food and shelter.

Until a few years ago, I too shared some of those beliefs, but then I read a very powerful book by Deepak Chopra. In that book, the author describes the concept of unconditional giving, or giving for the sake of giving rather than to make a point or further a certain goal.

This concept is one of the most uplifting and liberating concepts I want to share with you here. If you can give any amount or do any favor, not to be thanked or rewarded or even be concerned about the consequences of your action, you have truly experienced what it means to give.

I remember an autumn evening at the Seattle Pike market after the stands are closed and most tourists are gone from the area. We were in town just for the night and had been considering what to have for dinner. At that point my attention got drawn to a scruffy old man who sat alone at the far end of a roofed in area and ate a sparse supper. I couldn’t tell whether he was homeless or just looked that way because of the dirty work at the fish market or the boat docks during the day.

Either way, I felt my inner voice nudging me to give him some money. I actually didn’t have any change or small bills on me, all I had was a twenty and larger. But even that didn’t really phase me as an issue. So I walked over to him and handed him the twenty dollar bill and wished him a good evening as I walked away. I can’t even recall what he said to me at this point, but actually that is not important here anyways.

What was important to me was the tramendous sense of sharing and even accomplishment I received from giving away some of my dinner money. I didn’t care what he spent the money on, or even if he was deserving or not. I had learned to not be attached to my money and to share what was given to me to allow more of it to flow into my life.

Without a doubt, charity and other acts of kindness are one of the key foundations of success in my life because from my own experience, if I actually added up what I have given away and what I have recieved from totally unrelated sources in return, I would come up with at least a ten to one ration in my favor.

This is the way of the universe.  

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