A month or so ago I was taking a shower and noticed that the paint on the wall above the tile was beginning to peel. "That's not such a big deal," I thought, "but I should repaint it one day."

I like to do this sort of stuff. My father was a painter and I learned all about remodeling houses from him. So, let's say that now I decide to repaint the wall and I'm feeling really good because this is going to be fun for me. I go to the hardware store and get the paint, a fun, maybe kind of wild, color, and brushes and whatever else I will need -- all of the tools of the trade.

Let's say I'm in line and the person behind me is having a really bad day. The world is ending for them. Let's say it's a woman and her name is Mary Doe. Now, I am feeling really good so I ask her, "What's so terrible? What could be so bad in life?" She is really in the pits so my enthusiasm doesn't rub off. She gives me the kind of look that says, "Thanks, but no thanks." We have our little exchange of words and energy, and we both go our separate ways.

Well, Mary Doe gets home and finds that her daughter, Mary Jane is visiting. Now Mary Jane's got her own life stuff going on. She's a single mom of two little kids -- Dick and Carla -- and has all of the struggles we associate with being a single parent. Mary Jane begins telling her mother about her life, and Mary Doe tells her daughter about the crazy man she met in the hardware store. She tells her about this stranger -- stranger than anyone she had ever met -- who started asking her what could be so bad about life. Mary Jane listens, shakes her head, and they finish their coffee and conversation.

Mary collects Dick and Carla and they start on their way home. On the drive they pass a park and at the instant she sees the colored flowers bordering the green grass, the words "What could be so bad about life?" tickle Mary Jane somewhere deep inside. She decides, "Yeah, what is so bad!" Instead of going straight home, Mary Jane pulls into the park and takes little Carla and Dick for a walk.

During their walk, they pass some roses which have just bloomed. Mary stops and shows the roses to Carla and Dick and talks to them about how the rose somehow knows just when to open and how it knows just how to arrange its petals. She talks to them about how the rose knows it's different from the daisies next to it or the violets covering the ground in front of it. Mary, Dick and Carla have a grand time playing and exploring in the park, and then they go home to their life and all of its struggles, and Dick and Carla pop in their favorite video.

Well, ten years pass and little Carla is all grown up and a freshman in college, and she decides to take biology. Her professor is effervescent -- he loves his life's work. Carla is enamored by his excitement and during one of his lectures, she remembers that one afternoon when her mother took her and her brother for a walk in the park and asked them a simple question, "How does a rose know how to be a rose?"

Carla remembers this one moment out of her whole childhood. It causes a warmth and excitement to rush through her and at that moment, she decides, "I want to know how a rose knows how to be a rose."

Time moves on and so does Carla's life. Her desire to know leads her around the world through many different teachers and adventures. This unbending desire eventually takes her into the tropical rainforests where she begins working with an indigenous tribe struggling to keep itself alive against what we've called progress. Her quest leads her to helping the tribe realize the value of a tea they grow in a particular way. With the help of some friends she has made in her journey through life, Carla begins a company which gives to the people of the native tribe work doing what they do naturally -- cultivating this plant in a natural and time honored way, and selling it to outside markets . . . and because of this, hundreds of square miles of rainforest are preserved as well as the beauty of a culture of people which otherwise may have fallen to be lost forever, just like the rainforests are falling now.

All of this -- all of this --because paint was peeling in my bathroom shower! Think about it.

The point is, what you do matters! We frequently think that our actions, especially those "small" things like smiling at the clerk in the grocery store or telling the person at the toll booth to have a great day don't matter. Well, they do! Everything you do, from the smallest, innocent smile or kind word to the grandest gesture or gift, matters. And it matters as if the whole of the universe depends on it. It matters and affects the whole of consciousness in ways you cannot, and will not, ever be able to comprehend or imagine.

We will never reach the Golden Age of the new millennium that people speak and prophesize about by waiting for it to come. As long as we believe we have to wait, we will be waiting! Revelation is right here, right now: The only way we will reach what is already surrounding us is by living it ourselves, right here, right now. And living it ourselves means each of us knowing that what we do matters, and living accordingly.

We won't get to a world of peace and love by disliking hatred and violence. We arrive at the Golden Age by loving peace and love, and living the love of peace and love of all things right now!

What you do matters, and you will never ever know where the kind look you put on your face will inspire someone to go. You will never know. But: Can you imagine?!

Doctor Richard Sandore is a Western trained physician who now practices Andean shamanism and healing. He has a private healing practice, writes, lectures and leads healing journeys across the world. To contact Dr. Sandore or receive your free copy of the Cholla Wayra, The Winds of Vision newsletter, please call 847-599-1885.