King Midas was the one who turned everything he touched into gold. The legend says that Midas asked Dionysos, as a reward for his help, to fulfill his wish: everything he touched should turn to gold. His wish came true, the king was becoming richer and richer with every touch he made. The problem arose when he could no longer eat or drink – everything was turning into gold.
I like this metaphor about turning everything we touch into gold. I really hope we have all met people with this kind of touch. They are those people who enrich our souls, give us a new perspective, share examples, tell us meaningful stories, cite poetry, recommend a movie, a book, in order to emphasize something. They are those special beings with whose help, after a while, we become better people, by interacting with them, learning from them. Even if we don’t always understand, even if sometimes we feel confused, or even small compared to their knowledge, our deep self takes, little by little, something from our interactions with them, it grows, evolves, and learns how to recognize the ”gold” that those people bring into our relationship and, step by step, it feels that, in return, it gets some gold dust itself.
To acknowledge these people we need generosity, openness, capacity to see the good in others, we have to pay efforts in admiring others as an exercise. I can fairly say I have this kind of people around me and it makes me feel lucky.
Beyond these people who really are like King Midas, I think it’s best to always search for everyone’s glowing part and golden touch. Of course, we all have many weaknesses, we all have flaws, meanness, our unsophisticated part.
But in the same way, we all have glowing parts, we can all sprinkle some gold dust over others, if they allow us, and if they as well choose to look into our glow. This admiring exercise can only be done by kind people, those who’ve been less touched by envy.