In 1971 John Lennon composed a song entitled, “Imagine” in which he wrote the following lyrics.

Imagine no possession / I wonder if you can / no need for greed or hunger / a brotherhood of man / Imagine all the people sharing all the world…

Take a moment to look around you and ask yourself, “What do I own”? You could say that you own the clothes on your body. It is true, you bought them. We make statements like, “these are my shoes, my watch, my car” Even things that aren’t technically yours become owned. For example, perhaps you work on a computer that is in your office that your employer owns, but since it is in your office it becomes your computer. What about things that you owned that are no longer physically in your possession? You threw them out, or maybe donated them, are they still yours? Do know where those things are? What about people who you consider to be friends? How many of those people are still in your life? What about your body? Do you own that? Yes, you do for the time that you occupy it, but is it really yours? How about your feelings, do you own them?

As you begin to reflect on the idea that I am proposing, when it comes to possession, everything is temporary. If something is temporary, does that really make it yours? The answer is, no. Nothing is truly owned. Everything is on loan. Every thing, drifts in and out of your life. Notice the level of freedom you can begin to experience when you allow this insight. You can possess something, but also realize that is not really yours. You can begin to free yourself of the emotional attachments that develop with the concept of ownership. As John Lennon implies, what happens to greed or even the physical loss of our possessions when we realize that we don’t own them?

Regarding the things that we currently “have” in our possession, we have a choice to either care for and cherish, or dismiss and minimalize them. Realize that you are the holy steward of all that comes into and out of your life. Take care of yourself with love, and treat with love everything you have. Take care of your possessions; take care of the people in your life, take care of your body. Do this with the realization that all is indeed temporary. Do it with the freedom from the heavy emotional energy that accompanies the mentality of ownership. You will find yourself taking better care of everything, and enjoying what you have to an extent you can’t even begin to, “imagine“.

© 2018 Michael Morris, MA, LLP