Today dawn presented a splendid gift.
The rising sun teamed with morning moisture to create a colourful arch at the base of the mountain, atop a flaxen field. My eyes slid down the rainbow toward the mythical pot of gold buried at the end of it, but then I stopped myself short. I realized I was mentally paying bills and planning holidays with my new found gold.
I asked myself why I was wasting the fleeting moments, before this gift disappeared, by wanting more. I thought about how nature made the pot of gold at rainbow's end forever beyond our grasp. Similar to attempting to touch the end of the rainbow, happiness also remains forever out of reach if our desire for more breeds discontent with what we already have.
Not surprisingly, when returning to the present and appreciating this moment for the gift that it was giving I felt content and happy. The real pot of gold may not be in how to acquire unlimited wealth but in how to acquire unlimited happiness. Luckily, happiness is a choice always available for free.
"Happiness consists not in having much, but in wanting no more than you have." Lydia M. Child