This morning I visited a local lavender farm and within it they had a wishing garden. We were given tags to write on and hang up. It was so pretty and whimsical and I absolutely loved it. We chose to go into the garden at the end of our tour so that it wouldn’t be crowded, and I spent a good chunk of time reading other peoples wishes.
There were your usual wishes for world peace, or unending happiness. There were wishes for a healthy family, longevity of life, and safety. But then there were wishes for things like an abundance of money or material possessions. Although the act of making wishes is practically harmless (like really, when was the last time you blew out your birthday candles and the wish actually came true?), the kinds of things that people wrote really got me thinking. What are the things that truly matter to us? While one person is wishing for their dying family member to get the healing that they need, another person may be wishing for the funds to buy a sports car. While there is no right or wrong thing that you can wish for, it just really reveals the minds of the people.
I suppose my point with this is, what are the things that we, as individuals, value? What are the things that our lives that we are lacking and that we are searching for? Because I’ll tell you one thing – having the nicest material possessions isn’t going to matter when you die. One of the wishes that was hanging was a wish for life to be filled with laughter and the love of family, and those things are going to have so much worth in the end. When it comes down to it, life is about those around us, and about the relationships that we build, and the character that we have. It is about the things that are irreplaceable. So I’ll leave you with the question: what truly matters to you, and what are you investing your life in?