Inspiration

I was walking through the lobby of my residence building at York, when I passed by a girl, with whom I am acquainted, who seemed to be overjoyed at something. When we made I contact she exclaimed, "I'm so happy! Do you know why?" Thinking she had just won some large sum of money, I offered up that exact possibility. To my surprise, her reply was, "I'm giving away everything that I own!!"

What a contrast! The first thing I think of in association with happiness is money - that eternal symbol of materialism - while her mind was in the exact opposite direction!

Questioning her further, I found out that she's going to join some club somewhere in Canada called 'Snowboarders for Christ'.

For those interested, here is some 'About Us' info from their website:

We desire to work closely with our local churches in our effort to communicate with the mountain culture our faith in Jesus.
We run weekly Bible studies, ride clubs for kids, contests, snowboard camps, hospitality tents and other special events. We are also looking to take teams of riders to foreign countries to do practical work with local churches and share our faith with those snowriding cultures. If you want to be involved you need to either join an existing group or see if God wants you to start SfC in your area.

I actually felt really inspired by her overjoy at choosing to join this community. I didn't even know anything about it until I looked it up for this blog. Although I'm not a Christian myself (duh for those who know me, I know!!) I think that seeing the emotional uplifting of someone due to a change in their life really hits me in a good way. I guess I really like seeing people taking charge of their lives and making important decisions with positive consequences. Regardless of the fact that the community this girl is joining is faith based, it still is something she's doing for other people, and I can't help but see that in a positive light.

What's the lesson in this experience for me I wonder? I'm not about to make a huge change in my trajectory; I know where I want to be after York University (in graduate school for Clinical Psych!!). I think the lesson that I'd like to take out of this is to take more joy out of the non-material things about human interaction: Complimenting people, taking opportunities to help when someone is in need, trying to value my family more, etc!

Psycho-spiritually,

- Inkhorn