By Susan Ellis of Keylifejourneys

When creating websites and writing blogs one often wonders "is there anyone out there?"

This week I was rewarded by a blog comment from Australia and a delightful letter from Morro Bay, California. Here is that letter -

"My name is Camden and I am a 22 year old female college student who has been in the past and will be at some point in the future, a caregiver for my grandparents who raised me. I know that care giving is part of my spiritual path as it allows me to show my grandparents the love, respect, work, and patience that they afforded me as a child. I just wanted to drop you a line and give a sincere thank you for this website as I know it's resources will help me transition through these experiences with open eyes and an open heart."

When care giving comes freely and with desire it has to be a growth experience. Giving from the heart expands our whole being. When resentment creeps into the care giving, the entire energy pattern changes. Indeed it is not good for our health.

I have written before about how the presence of a negative attitude impacts on the care giver role. Let me focus here on the impact of positive energy when care giving. Many wise people have talked about the value of service to not only the individual, but to the world.

It seems to me that when I had time to give to my care giving I enjoyed the role; I relaxed into it embracing the physical contact and meaningful communication. It was easy to be patient and I was stimulated by creative problem solving.  But when I was rushed, juggling responsibilities, and when tired, the role became less of a healthy challenge and more of a stress filled burden. So we need to learn time management, acquire the ability to ask for help and get plenty of sleep so that giving of ourselves does not drain us.

I hope caregivers, and potential care givers, take time to read the following quotations. Apply them to your own lives; absorb the importance of the role that you play. Many short-sightedly believe that care giving is a waste of time; time which should be used to fulfill more lofty ideals. Indeed our society reinforces that outlook. But rest assured we can switch around our attitude to the task and know that the challenge is ours to accept and from which to grow.

Enjoy these words of wisdom.

Norman Cousins
If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality .

Mahatma Gandhi
The fragrance always remains on the hand that gives the rose.

Mahatma Gandhi

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Anthony Robbins
Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life's deepest joy: true fulfillment.

John Wooden

You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.

Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915) US author
All success consists in this: You are doing something for somebody - benefiting humanity - and the feeling of success comes from the consciousness of this.

Emily Dickinson
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Up to his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Albert Einstein:

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.

Albert Schweitzer:

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

Eleanor Roosevelt:

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

Felix Adler:

To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one's own, is ever the beginning of one's real ethical development.

Herman Melville:

We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibres, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Woodrow Wilson:

If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig.

Helen Keller

Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.

Muhammad Ali

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.  

Oprah Winfrey    O Magazine, September 2002
I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint - and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.

Lateef Warnick - source: "One Source of Universal Love"

The greatest life one can have is of service. Give joy, happiness, bliss, laughter, wisdom, prosperity, love & light to others. By doing so, you tap into the Infinite Source within ensuring that you will never have to do without these "treasures" yourself!