The Wings of a Butterfly

It has been said that the only things that are certain are death and taxes. I disagree with that. I think the only thing that is certain is change. If you look around you, everything is changing, every moment that we exists. The universe is constantly in a state of change. It started 90 gazillion years ago with the big bang and is continuing today. There are new planets, stars and galaxies being formed and old ones are dying even as I write this or you read it.

The Buddhist believe all of life is an illusion because of change. It is like water in a stream or waterfall that is constantly changing. Because of its constant movement it is changing in itself and changing everything that it touches. If you gather water in bucket and just leave it, the water will evaporate over time. But every change makes a difference, no matter how big or how small.

Jimmy Stewart made a film in the late forties called It's a wonderful life. It's about a business man during the depression that is just about ready to lose everything and is in total despair. He is on a bridge contemplating whether he should jump into the icy water below. when he is approached by his guardian angel. The angel shows him how life would have been without him and how it affects everything and everybody around him. He would not have married his wife; his children would not have been born, and he would not of had his business. After seeing that, he realizes that he can make a difference. He goes back home and starts his life over again and becomes a huge success. View the trailer below.

When we make a positive difference, it makes us not only feel better, but everybody around us, because it is for the greater good. That's what random acts of kindness are all about.

I was doing my exercise walk one day when I saw a car parked with a police car behind it. As I approached, I saw the hood up on the car and the officers were working on the engine. They had a can of gasoline. I asked them what was wrong and they said they can't get this car started and were about ready to pour the gasoline in the engine. I said wait don't do that, it will just flood the engine even more. I told the driver to hold the accelerator pedal to the floor and crank the engine. After a few cranks, it started right up. The officers and driver thanked me and I was on my way. It made me feel good and I'm sure they felt good as well.

When people climb Mount Everest and they reach the top, they feel a sense of great exhilaration, because the have overcome the chance of not making it to the top. They have overcome the challenge. We are challenged everyday by situations not as big as mount Everest, but nevertheless overcoming those challenges makes a difference. In the T.V. Series Roots, when Kunt Kente was born, his father held him up to the night sky and said behold the only thing bigger than yourself. When we overcome challenges, I believe we are creating things bigger than ourselves.

I was at Pismo beach California for my daughters wedding and we had sometime off the day before the wedding. We found there was event about the Monarch butterflies returning to Pismo beach. We went to were the oak grove was and there were literally thousands of monarch butterflies flapping their wings in the trees.

I thought to myself, I heard saying about the wind created from the flapping wings of a butterfly could change the weather patterns thousands of miles away by just disturbing the air currents and I thought this is the perfect metaphor for making a difference no matter how big or how small the change is that you make.

So the next time you don't thing that you are making a difference, just think about the wind currents from the flapping wings of the butterfly and how that small change can affect weather patterns thousands of miles away. You don't have to be the President of the United States to make a change, just think of the butterfly and its flapping wings.