Finding Our Fortunes

by Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

"I've started writing a story," my daughter Bella announced. "It's called Ella's big adventure, and this is how it starts: Hi. My name is Ella, and I have three days to seek my fortune."

The expression rang like a bell in my head. "To seek my fortune," why is that such a captivating idea?

"The first day, I met a pig," continues my daughter…"That's all I've got so far."

I had to bite my tongue not to tell her where I thought Ella would find her fortune. Bite my tongue, because perhaps it is not for me to say ~ to end the adventure before it even begins. As much as I want to tell my young daughter that the greatest fortune she will find might well be her Self, that jewel in her heart that knows eternal love, how can I? Perhaps, really, it wouldn't be fair. Instead of giving her a gift, I would be stealing from her the chance of her own lifetime: to find the truth for herself. Yet this is what I want to tell her. I have hidden this message in books that I hope she will some day, unsuspecting, stumble upon. I cannot help it.

We all have times in our lives when we set out to seek our fortunes, like fairy tale heroes, young people on the brink of adulthood, or those restless with their lot in life. These are splendid times. Exciting times. And even now, every morning when we awake is another chance to seek our fortune. I suspect one finds one's fortune as soon as one has the ability to recognize it, hidden, maybe, yet always present. I know that in that moment I recognized my own.

It occurred to me at that moment, while driving my young daughter home from school, that I had found my fortune~ in the tender love of my children, my husband, my sense of the Eternal Divine, and the majestic beauty of the place I am lucky enough to call home…

In the old days, when people set out to seek their fortunes, weren't they looking for a safe place to call home; a place to raise families in freedom; a sense of community and purpose, a piece of land to till? At least, wouldn't 99% of the earth's population today still agree that that is what we seek?

The world today cautions us against settling. We must never cease to strive to perfect our lot, it suggests. Is there a better job, a better partner, a better house, a greater happiness to pursue? Yet what a feeling of lightness, indeed, enlightenment, to be able to look around at the life we find ourselves in and say, without hesitation, "This is who I am. This is what I want."

I can think of no greater fortune than the ability to make such an affirmation. "People are unhappy because they don't know that they are happy," the saying goes. And so I have come to the decision, ~life pivots on such decisions as these~ that when I awake in the morning, I remind myself, "I am happy. This is who I am. This is what I want." And then I ask, "Now, World, what do you ask of me today?"

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