A Soulspring Groups member shared a wonderful article with us last week, “How Far Has Your Bottle Gone?” from the January 2012 issue of Toastmaster’s magazine. In the article, author Ernest R. Stair writes about a man who put a note in a bottle. The note requested that whoever found the bottle send him a letter revealing its destination. He sealed the note in the bottle, tossed it in the ocean and began to imagine all the exotic places the bottle would go and adventures it would have. He waited anxiously for word that the bottle had been found; excited to see where it would eventually turn up.
Forty-five years later, his bottle was found, and he received a note from the finding party. The bottle was found only several hundred yards from the spot where he had originally thrown it. What a let-down...a great, big, giant failure; or was it?
While the bottle was found close to its origination there’s nothing to say that it didn’t travel the world before it came back. Perhaps the bottle thrower was correct, and it traveled to every exotic corner of the world, saw great vistas, and met many hands that threw it back into the water.
Or, maybe the bottle did only travel a few hundred feet before coming back to shore, and spent the remaining 45 years right there on the rocky coast. Imagine the sights of awe it must have experienced; the sunsets, the sunrises, the family outings, the fishing, the ships, the vacationers, the wildlife.
When taking stock of your life’s accomplishments, it’s inevitable to feel like you’ve had some disappointments. Do your grandiose ideas of travel, adventure, and changing the world seem a little more out of grasp these days? If so, perhaps you’re measuring the wrong thing. Instead of measuring your accomplishments by the final goal, what if you took stock of everything that has happened along the way? Isn’t that what’s really important anyway?
Becky,
Sister of Soul
Soulspiration of the Week:
“You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.” ~Georgia O'Keeffe
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