The Most Beautiful Mid-Autumn

These past couple of days, because of something in my life, my heart has been heavy, and unhappy. As if a cloud were pressing on it, one that would not lift, no matter what.

All day long, that cloud stayed. I tried to comfort myself with the books I've read, with all the truths I know. And strange to say, I understood every one of them, and still the cloud would not move. My heart remained tight, and sad. I felt as though my whole self had frozen, my thoughts no longer flowed, my work had no inspiration, and nothing seemed to hold any meaning at all.

That feeling reminded me of a little soul in a Disney film, one who couldn't find any meaning in life, who had grown a little dark. All that day, I felt just like her.

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Just now, I idly opened my phone, to see whether the children on our team had received the gift cards I'd sent them yesterday for the holiday.

I saw the blessing I'd written for one of the young women on our team. What I had written was, may your heart be light, and your worries few. She has been with us for a year now, and rarely speaks much, and I don't quite know how, without thinking, I came to write her those words.

And I remembered a companion of ours, who works alone, far from here. I'd sent her one too. I imagined her, on her own at home, feeling a little lonely, and how this small gift might let her go out, and share a coffee with a friend, and talk. Imagining her happy, something in my heart softened, and the cloud that had covered me parted, and my whole self began to flow again, and the world felt infinitely beautiful.

In that very moment, I even felt like crying. As if a wand had touched it, ever so lightly, and lit the dark corner of my heart.

I sat still for a long while, wondering why.

I had read so many books, so many truths to console myself, and none had lifted that cloud. And yet, in the moment I was thinking of doing something for others, of how it might make them happy, I, myself, was the first to be lit.

And suddenly I understood something.

The things we do for others, from the heart, each small kindness, they are all seeds of fire. In ordinary times, you may not even feel them. But when your own heart grows dark, it is exactly these seeds, the ones you once planted, that come back, one by one, and light you up again.

It was the first time I had ever truly felt that I could light up my own self.

I used to think that light had to come from others. I was always waiting, to be understood, to be warmed by someone. But today, I learned that when I go to warm others, the light I give out comes back, and lights me. Light, it turns out, returns.

So from now on, if I should walk into the darkness of my own heart again, I think I will no longer only wait for someone to light me. I will go and light a lamp for another. Because now I know, in that moment, the first to grow bright, will be me.

This, I think, is the most beautiful Mid-Autumn I have ever spent. It brought me the best of gifts, one I gave to myself.

—Marie, Founder of Lyfairs