Your presence is required
by Leslie Fieger
The common advice offered at eco-tourist destinations is, "Leave only footprints; take only pictures."
This is great advice… for eco-tourists.
Sadly, many people live their whole life this way. They leave no mark on the world, except their
footprints, which, as footprints in the sands of time, leave no more lasting impression than footprints on
a sandy beach.
As you journey through life, you can, if you choose, leave only your footprints on the path you travel;
or, you can choose to make a contribution, leave a legacy. Perhaps, you can leave a signpost at a fork in
the road for fellow travelers. Perhaps, you can put up a shelter in which weary explorers can weather a
storm. Perhaps you can clear the path of some of the obstacles that appear. Perhaps, you can provide
some entertainment at the rest points along the way. Perhaps, you can act as a guide for those who need
leadership and vision. Perhaps, you can even forge a new pathway through the wilderness.
You are unique. In the whole universe, with its infinite potentialities (manifest and as yet un-manifest)
there is only one you, with your particular attributes, qualities, perceptions, experiences, insights, skills
and capabilities. You can contribute something unique; something that no one else can. Your life is a
gift you have received. It is also a gift you can give.
At some point, you will recognize that your life is your masterpiece. The sooner you come to that
realization, the more time you will have to make it as beautiful and wondrous as you'd like it to be
when it is done. I hope you don't eventually come to that realization on your deathbed, or as you
approach it. So many what ifs.
It is my assertion that the 'how' of life may be complex, but the 'why' of life is simple; it is to revere,
relish and contribute.
To revere is to honor; to relish is enjoy; and the contribution you make to this world is your legacy.
You revere and honor life (yours and all other) by recognizing it as sacred and treating it as such.
You relish and enjoy life by partaking wholeheartedly in all that it has to offer.
You contribute to life by giving the gift of yourself… what you are and what you do.
Almost everyone has some sense of or belief in the sacred. The problem that most people have is that
this sacredness is placed in a box, out of sight and out of mind, while they get on with the necessity of
dealing with the profane world of daily life. In other words, the mundane is profane and the sacred is
elsewhere.
As theologist Matthew Fox, physicist Albert Einstein and Buddhist Siddhartha Gautama all have
reminded us, "Either everything is sacred or nothing is." To believe in the sacredness of a creator and
not believe in the sacredness of creation (all of it) is beyond stupidity and duplicity… it is insanity.
Most people are therefore insane. They might believe, for example, that marriage is a sacrament (made
sacred) but sex is profane. Forgive my language, but I can't resist the pun… that is fucked up thinking.
A piece of pizza is just as sacred as the piece of bread blessed by the priest. Until you get that, you will

never, in this life or any other, experience the sacred.
Since most people don't recognize and appreciate the sacredness of all things that exist within all
creation, they are also incapable of fully relishing the experience of being alive and participating in
creation. The 'guilty pleasures' attitude interferes with full out enjoyment of life. I find it extremely
amusing that many of those who aspire to an eternity of bliss in some imagined afterlife can't stand
even two minutes of bliss in this life without feeling guilty. Pleasure becomes a sin. What rot. Life is a
sacred gift to be fully relished. That cold beer on a hot day is sacred and blissfully (not sinfully)
delicious. Have two. It's twice as divine.
And finally, because so many people are so conflicted between their ideals and their actualities, they
are too crippled to make a decent contribution to life; and/or since they don't hold life in the world to be
of much value (after all, it's only mundane, profane even), they really don't see much point in making a
contribution.
Your purpose is to contribute. That's why you are here. So, get on with it. Be all you can be and share
that beingness with the rest of creation. Then become more and share the more with the rest of creation.
Creation therefore becomes more in your becoming more.
The more you become, the more you can offer; so, in becoming more by revering and relishing life
more, you are enabled to contribute more. Your true wealth is not measured by what you are able to
accumulate, but by what you are enabled to contribute.
Take stock of your assets and see how wealthy you already are. Celebrate that. Be grateful for that. The
go about becoming more, enacting more and attaining more.
Click below to find out more about...
Leslie Fieger, The DELFIN Trilogy and The DELFIN Empowerment Platform