When we are in India...it never ceases to amaze me, that the children there find such Joy in the smallest and simplest things to keep themselves occupied. You will always see the image above...boys walking down the street with a stick and an old tire tube...rolling down the the road with huge smiles on their faces...
Last night as I watched "Super Nanny"..the family on the show had two boys and those boys had SO many toys in their room scattered across the floor, so thick you couldn't see the carpeting..they had toys on the walls (on shelves) on the dressers, in the closet, under the bed, in drawers, coming out of drawers....OMG....I could not believe it. They had SO much..and didn't appreciate what they had..there were HUGE BAGS filled with toys...all I could think about were the children in India that play with paper and string..tire tubes and sticks...little pebbles on the ground...and they are 10 times happier than the kids on the show that had everything money could buy...
Makes you stop and think...at least it made me stop and think.
I have two sons, they had toys..there was NO lack of toys when they were young...but every single year after Christmas, we had a ritual...the ritual was this..and we all agreed on it beforehand...
The boys would each go into their rooms and pick out the toys they no longer played with anymore and they felt that they could give away...and we would fill up a few bags of toys and take them to the shelters in town and the boys would give them to the children at the shelters.
It made them feel so good inside, and it stayed with them to this day.
Neither one of my sons has a problem giving away anything...in fact they gladly give if they feel they want to. It brings tears to my eyes just knowing that we have raised them to be so unselfish and giving...
Because the fact of the matter is..It IS indeed so much better to give than to receive! It just feels so GOOD!
OM Shanti!
3 comments:
when I returned from India the first time, I told people how people who have nothing can have everything.
if I were a witch, I would twitch my nose and drop a few whiney suburban kids in the middle of Chennai without their IPods and cell phones...just so they could see how the majority of the rest of the world lives...
so true..those who have nothing have indeed more than those who have it all!
my son Oliver who is 16 always say's to me.."Kids around here are so spoiled, if they went to India and saw what the kids there have maybe they would appreciate things here more" imagine that..16 years old..such wisdom!
I didn't have many toys as a child, although I loved reading and had a lot of books. Like the boys, I have no trouble giving things away. I think kids have far too much these days and I wonder why? It creates a sense of entitlement and attachment...
xoxo
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