The need for more.

Please do not ask me to tell you about the painting used on this blog because the simple answer is that I cannot. I could while I was painting it in my head yesterday while walking in the pouring rain but once I got home and did it I could not for the life of me remember the circumstances. I have no doubt whatsoever that the next time I walk that route I will.  So why bother? Because that was what I was feeling and seeing and going with the flow that was what I did. 

I am smiling now when I read just how silly that paragraph sounds and I am aware it will sound even stranger to those who have not heard me speaking of going with the flow. 

That being said let me return to firmer ground. I heard this morning the government is about to put out a recommendation to parents in England and Wales this morning. 

The warning is this, "Children are to be only given two sweet treats a day."  I am reading this again to make sure I have that correct and yes it is. 

Two sweet treats a day! I was very lucky as a child if I got one sweet treat a week. 

Another item on the news this morning. A large number of people are going to be finding it very difficult in 2018 because they are starting with a huge amount of debt accrued over the festive period. 

Now let me share with you a thought I read in my morning meditation and dwelt upon. 

"A bow that is stretched to its fullest capacity very surely will snap. A knife that has been sharpened to its very sharpest may easily be made dull."

It is a simple message, we need to stop wanting more and more. The desire for more does not bring with it anything other than a feeling of unrest or unease. There is in all things a limit beyond which it is pointless to go.

Yes, there are those, like Oliver Twist, who have a right to seek and ask for more, but the reality is that as individuals and a nation it is not possible to go on living beyond our means. 

We who are on Facebook and such platforms are continually bombarded by advertising that tells us we need more and more to be happy. 

So we keep developing more and more and in the process, we need even more. It now takes longer to go from one side of London to the other than it did before the invention of the car.

We have a world of starving and obesity. Caused mainly because we do not know when we have enough. 

So for 2018, it might be a good thing to begin to ask ourselves about the difference between the things we want and the things we need.

Back to the painting above, because I have remembered where it came from. There is a black cloud of desire surrounding us and we are being swamped by this need for more and more.  But it is not all gloom and doom because the colour of hope still peeps through and the game is not yet up.

Apologies for this mornings rant, my brain is still stuck in the thought of happy new year. If it is indeed to be happy, and it can be, it will be because each of us becomes a more contented individual. 

Have a marvellous day and the black clouds will all disappear.