It was a ‘no car/no spending’ day yesterday which, I momentarily forgot (about the no spending) when I went to order a book online. But!… the Universe never forgets.

When I went to get my wallet out of my purse, no wallet.

I searched. Everywhere. I even phoned my girlfriend with whom I’d gone to an art exhibit the evening before to see if it had accidentally dropped out in her car. I even phoned the coffee shop where I’d met with a friend Saturday morning. I even checked the roadway in front of our house thinking perhaps it had fallen out of my purse when I’d gotten out of my girlfriend’s car the night before.

No wallet.

Needless to say, I was getting rather concerned. The thought of cancelling cards, getting new id was daunting.

Before I started cancelling cards, I decided I’d better check my car, just in case. Throughout my search, I kept telling myself, it can’t be in the car because after Ellie’s walk I went for coffee and had it then.  Sure enough, there it was. It had fallen out of my bag onto the floor of the passenger seat when I’d come home earlier that day.

Making commitments is important. Keeping them even more important. Not for the universe — for me. Keeping my commitments means I am walking in my integrity, standing in my trust, being who I want to be in the world. And when I walk in integrity, I make a world of positive difference all around me. I’m not trying to hide, when I know I am living from a place of integrity. I’m not making excuses or telling myself stories about why it’s okay to have compromised on a commitment, or belief.

I almost broke my commitment yesterday, but a mistake saved me. The difference in that mistake is I had time to remember what spending money would do to my commitment. It meant, when I did find my wallet, I had time to take a breath and remember — ‘it’s a no car/no spending day’. While as one friend wrote that doing it one day a week doesn’t make that big a difference to the world, keeping the commitment makes a huge difference to me.

Walking with integrity, standing in trust, being trustworthy are all vital aspects of me being me in the world. Keeping my commitments to myself, and others, is the only way to hold onto being who I want to be in a world where all too often, opportunities to ‘act out’ beckon me to take a shortcut to happiness. There are no shortcuts to happiness. There is only the way of being my who I am meant to be when I keep my commitments. In that act, I walk tall. I walk with confidence knowing I am turning up for me — and not letting myself off the hook of my accountability.

Everyday we are presented with opportunities to learn, to grow, to be the difference we want to make in the world. And everyday, we have opportunities to take short cuts to happiness. It is the choices we make that make the difference in the long road of life lived joyfully in the rapture of now.

Namaste.