When we get sick, really sick, we wake up. We realize the value of the life force running through our bodies and inspiring our minds.
When we face death, all we want is life. Life is the true wealth. But until that happens, too many people, including many of our leaders, mistake wealth for money, and they spend their lives gathering money instead of preserving, enhancing, and enjoying life itself.
The great thing about the election of the president of the U.S. is that the people won. All the huge corporations, the super wealthy billionaires, poured massive amounts of money into electing their guy — Mitt Romney — the one they believed would protect their personal wealth. Meanwhile, Obama’s much smaller campaign budget was gathered primarily from small donations of ordinary people with limited resources. But at least for one more election, the wealthy were not able to buy the US Presidency.
I heard a suggestion. We should have politicians wear outfits like the racecar drivers — so we know who their corporate sponsors are.
What we really need for leaders are human beings, who are loyal to life itself, in all its myriad forms — who care not only for the humans in their tiny circle of nuclear family and social group, but the whole circle of humanity and the entire web of life.
A web — like a net — is weak and useless once it has holes in it. We can’t be blasting holes in the web of life and think it won’t matter. We can’t be selling off the future and life itself to the highest bidder and think that we won’t go bankrupt. We can’t be giving away the wisdom, intelligence and freedom of our individual hearts and minds in order to gain corporate sponsors or party support.
Our true wealth is life itself. As a society here in Canada, we have an abundance of resources and money. If some are suffering, if the land itself is suffering, it’s because of forces that encourage us to act like Scrooge, hoarding, grabbing and worshipping what is dead.
Life is what matters.
Joanne Sales
Qualicum Beach