Sure, living generously blesses those who receive your gift. But giving also blesses you as it reminds you that you can make a difference, that you have purpose, and that no one is as equipped to meet the particular challenge in front of you in this place and time, as you.
We each were born, and each will die. But in between is where we write the story of our lives. What will we have lived for? What do we care enough to die for? When will we risk, speak out, shine, dare, love, hate? What are the moments of our lives that will define why we are here and why we matter? Where is our passion?
We each write the story of our own lives. Let yours be a page-turner.
As we craft our lives, we can do well to listen to these words about a third-grade drop out:
How you living?
The world these days moves at a breakneck speed. Twitter and social media speed it up even further.
We are tempted to respond to everything and everyone immediately with whatever thought first passes through our minds. But is that always our best thought? Once said, can it be retrieved?
Often, it is far better to pause, to breathe, to contemplate before deciding whether what we have to say can meaningfully add to the conversation or will just contribute to the din.
Life is short. Seize it. Spend it. Enjoy it.
And find time to share little moments together with the people who are on this journey with you. For inspiration, watch this delightful video of a dad beatboxing with his very appreciative baby:
Just when we think we get what life is all about, something comes along to knock us upside the head and show us we have it wrong. It forces us to reevaluate our foundational assumptions about the purpose of life and look at things in a whole new way. It’s a paradigm shift.
Stephen Covey tells of a paradigm shift he experienced:
“I remember a mini-Paradigm Shift I experienced one Sunday morning on a subway in New York. People were sitting quietly — some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene. Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed.
“The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people’s papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing.
“It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little more?”
“The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, ‘Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.’
“Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man’s pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. “Your wife just died? Oh, I’m so sorry. Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?” Everything changed in an instant.
“Many people experience a similar fundamental shift in thinking when they face a life-threatening crisis and suddenly see their priorities in a different light, or when they suddenly step into a new role, such as that of husband or wife, parent or grandparent, manager or leader.
“It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.
“In the words of Thoreau, ‘For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root.’ We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow.”
(from Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)
Or consider the paradigm shift that Ebenezer Scrooge’s partner, now a ghost, Jacob Marley, recounts to him before the visit of the three Christmas ghosts in Christmas Carol. Both Scrooge and Marley thought they had life figured out–it was all about business and making money, the more the better. But Marley has had a paradigm shift since dying:
“‘But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
“‘Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.’ “
Get ready to get hit upside the head, metaphorically speaking. It may be time for a paradigm shift.
Stumbling around in the dark can be painful, dangerous, and frustrating. We bump into stuff; we get lost; we despair. We lose our bearings and do not know how to get where we are trying to be.
But we each can help by lighting the way–with our words and actions. Consider kindness, for example, and how it can shine light on a very dark situation. In a story now going viral, a woman shared about how she was young in an elevator with her mother, who was berating her. As they left, a stranger whispered to her, “It’s not you; It’s her.” Just those five words of encouragement helped her to see beyond the horrid situation she found herself in and to buttress herself against the abuse rather than assuming, as all children do, that her mother was correct in the condemnation. She found hope:
“When life gets really dark, when she hears her (inner) mother’s voice telling that she’s sh*t, she can’t do it, or to just plain give up,” Solomon writes, “she then sees that stranger’s face as the door closes in front of her.” In fact, sometimes, Solomon says, “it’s the only thing that keeps her going.”
Think of the power you have just with your ability to be kind to someone who desperately needs it! What a gift it is to have eyes that can see suffering and to be able to help. That ripple of kindness never stops.
There is something about organizing closets or sleeping floors that is therapeutic. Where once there was a mess, now there is order. And when done to soothe your mood, the activity brings a sense of calm. Short, angry jabs of the broom become slow graceful sweeps, until what was once dirty becomes clean.
Sweeping dirty floors is a great metaphor for tackling most any problem, including anger and fear. Anger tells us where the work needs to be done; activity gives us a place to put that surge of adrenaline, and focusing on the task turns our attention away from fear to the project at hand.
We love the myth of the self-made man, but it’s just a myth. There is always someone you can point to who helped you–maybe in obvious ways like putting a roof over your head or paying for your education, but even in more subtle ways like paving the streets you drive on and planting and harvesting the produce you eat. None of us can do it all. And that’s a good thing. Helping each other is what gives us purpose, and being grateful for that help keeps us humble.
In honor of Black History Month, each of the quotes this month for Quotable Creek has been drawn from Black voices. In keeping with today’s quote about accomplishments, consider this remarkable list of inventions by Black men and women:
We probably use at least one of these things each day. So to these men and women, and to all the others who have helped build our world into what it is today, thank you!
We each are a little bit Cleopatra, the Queen of “Denial”. We overlook flaws in ourselves and our relationships. We gloss over harms and injustices we see or commit. Because when we notice these things, we disrupt the status quo. Things might get messy before they get better. And it calls on us to get to work rather than just kick the can down the road.
But for real progress to be made, in ourselves and in our relationships, we must look deeply and notice where things fall short. Then we can get to work to close the gap between the way things are and the way we want them to be.
“Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t no love at all.” –Toni Morrison
Thin love says, “I love you if…” There are as many ways to fill in that blank as there are relationships. Thin love is conditional love, love that shows up only when its own needs are met first. Thin love is love that doesn’t show up at all when things get tough. Thin love puts itself first and is never sacrificial.
Love is bigger than that. It shows up whether you’re in prison or the boardroom, whether you’re top of the class or getting expelled, whether you are sick or well. Love gives wholly of itself and never runs dry.
Love is.
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