simple gifts or trophy gifts

For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn't everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what's the point of all this comparing and competing? You already have all you need.

1 Corinthians 4:7

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Simple Gifts by Joseph Brackett (1848)

We need to remember that everything we have is a gift. We don't own our next heart beat and we are not entitled to anything. This goes against the cultural ideas we live around.

• "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." — Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
• "You can always recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity." — Richard Feynman (1918–1988)
• "Our lives are frittered away by detail; simplify, simplify." — Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
• "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." — Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)