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Would Change Change You?
Though a stroke of magic, not through any hard work on your part - you are transported to a castle - a place of great opulence, with ornate carvings on the walls and stairways, thirty foot ceilings, exquisite furnishings, Persian carpets, marble floors, gold statues, crystal chandeliers, your meals cooked for you, served you, all the ugly little details of cleaning left to someone else - would it overwhelm you, would it change who you were? After a time, would it make you think you were a better person, a more important person? Would it become part of your character to know you deserved this, to be couched in such elegance and luxury?
Or could you remain the same person – acting the same, retaining the same character and values you had before?
Conversely, what if you were transported to another place, one that was a great deal less than where you previously lived – say a 1967 mobile home in a bad trailer park, with rotten floors, barking dogs and trash-filled yards. Would that change you, make you feel ashamed or that you were less deserving? Or could you remain the same person, not humiliated or embarrassed, but content with being where you were and who you were, regardless of your surroundings?
If you live in the same glorious house all of your life, then you might begin to define yourself by your house. You might think it was part of you and that you wouldn't be you without it.
This same thought follows through to possessions - if you become too attached to what you own, or what you do, or possibly even another person, then you come to believe that those define you.
But ideally, if you are a complete being, then you would retain your essential essence regardless of your situation in life or what you have. You are still able to love, even possibly love to a greater degree, if you are confident within your own being.
You are you – a special and unique individual - regardless of where you live or what you do for a living.
Regina Calton Burchett
August 23, 2000
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