If you want light to come into your life, you need to stand where it is shining. - Guy Finley
I was really depressed once. Well, sad. Heartbroken, in fact. Why didn’t the girl that I was slowly breaking up with call me. I couldn’t call her. It was one of those moments, in one of those situations. But why didn’t she call me?
I missed her sooooo much.
I went out one Sunday to do a kind of charity thing my school did. Help disabled kids play sports. Well, really, just play sports with them.
I remember one girl taking, maybe...I dunno...thirty seconds? – to kick the ball, maybe, six inches. All the other kids stood patiently, waiting.
I’m no communist, but it really was “to each according to his need, from each according to his ability.” (Okay, I Googled: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Whatever.) I’ve never met nicer people in my life. They all seemed utterly considerate of each other.
I can’t quite remember exactly what my help consisted of. I think I was assigned a particular kid to help, and I guess I just encouraged him, helped him out somehow, made him happy. I don’t really remember.
Somewhere in the middle of that game, my girlfriend rang me. “I’m busy,” I said, and was even annoyed that she interrupted. She was asking about a dress. It seemed so unimportant. Her, the dress. Yet, an hour earlier, it would have felt like a thousand fireworks going off inside me, that she called. She called. She called.
So I guess my point is..."If you want light to come into your life, you need to stand where it is shining?” Really? Where is the light shining? A church? A beautiful field? Where? All those places would have made me miserable, all I’d be able to think about was my girlfriend.
But here I was, trying to be a light to other people. And I might, it’s true, have shined about two watts into their lives. But the result was infinite suns inside of me.
So, if you want light to come into your life, shine a little light on others. It worked for me. I wish I could do it more often. It’s so hard to find organised charity things to help out with. School’s so easy, by comparison with this “real life” sh*t.
