So many of us are looking for “the good life” — so many of us are searching for the better partner or the better job or the better city or the better self-help technique that will finally make us happy. And this deep yearning presents us with a pretty big problem, because there are only two ends to it: we either fail to realize our desires and remain extremely disappointed with life, or we receive the very things we hope for, only to then realize that they don’t make us truly happy at all (whereupon we go searching once again).

Like so many of you, I too have danced this dance for so many of my years; danced to this music that wasn’t quite my style; always hoping for a better song or a better partner to dance with — never satisfied with either — always just a bit off-step & a bit out of rhythm. I too used to think it was my environment that was lacking. I too used to believe that I needed a partner who “truly loved me”, a job that fully rewarded my abilities, a community filled with “my kind of people” — people who respected me and provided me with regular doses of “fun & excitement” …

Then one day, I woke up to quite the liberating Truth: namely, that deep & lasting Happiness has nothing at all to do with “me”; that it has nothing at all to do with what I do or do not possess in my life; that real Peace & real Joy only come to me when I dedicate my life — moment by moment — to bringing Peace &/or Joy to others … 😉

And the best thing about this Truth was — I didn’t need to wait for “better times” to let it play out. I didn’t need to wait to “get healthy” or “have enough money” or “make the time” to Love on the other folks around me. Indeed, the worse I felt physically, the more potent my Love became when I chose to give it anyway. The less money I had, the more potent my generosity became when I chose to give anyway. And the less spare-time I had to share, the more Meaning-full that time became when I chose to share it anyway.

In simple truth: every little deed counts. Every “small” act of Kindness — especially those you do for others when you are “too sick” or “too tired” or “too poor” or “too busy” — is INCREDIBLY POWERFUL.

LOVE truly enters your life when you give it away in radical fashion — when you choose to live as though today were your very last day; as though you’ve been penned up for so many years and someone finally left the gate open. And, ironically, it is this LOVE that will — in those moments you have the courage to give it — become the source of very Happiness you seek.


Opportunities to LOVE are waiting for you right now, and the gate is ever wide open.

So, my friends … got LOVE?


“I don’t care who you are, you are into well-doing.
You have some talent that is blessing those in your sphere of influence.
It may appear to be small but it is not.
There is no such thing as a small talent.
There is no such thing as a small act of well-doing.”
~ Dalton Roberts

Filed under: Practical Tips for Peace-full Living by Scaughdt