Tag Perspective

Humble is as humble does

Michael 12 Comments

It has been said that you can tell the measure of people by how they treat someone who can’t do anything for them. Perhaps by doing something as simple as pausing, paying attention, or making eye contact, or as life changing as being there for someone who just lost a loved one, is acclimating is new city, or by stepping up to volunteer after a natural (or manmade) disaster we can increase our measure.

Too often we either ignore those around us or if we do offer help or comfort, we expect praises of gratitude and a lifetime of holding someone in our debt for having done them a “good deed.”

There was a time I was probably one of the bigger violators of what is really just another way of loving our neighbors as we do ourselves. In some weird twist of expectations, I felt I was entitled to others loving me as much as I loved myself. I had become a big fish in a decidedly little pond, and it was easy to assume everyone knew me and knew I controlled what went on in my world.

Then I moved into a big pond and fish my size were decidedly quite numerous and on the little side. My only entitlement was if I did a good job this week, I could be allowed to come back and work next week. There was no longer the staff willing to do whatever I wanted but was now a team that needed to be convinced that I was capable of being a part of the solution.

It was then I learned to appreciate those working with me, others as smart and as experienced as I was but with slightly different backgrounds to pull from. I learned we pull harder when we pull together and soon was helping even in projects I was not directly responsible for but knew I or my team would be able to contribute.

I became a part of the community and was accepted as “one of them,” ultimately becoming “one of us.”

Pope Leo recently said, “May no one think they have all the answers. May each person openly share what they have.” We have wonderful gift at our disposal. Humility. For that is genuinely what being humble means. We can hurry along our way, ignore those around us, and when we do reach out it is to see what we can pull back. Or we can slow down, ignite those around us, and bring enthusiasm and joy to others without the expectation of recognition or recompense.

This week’s Uplift recounts the story of a most famous individual and perhaps his most humbling experience and how we can all learn that it is not the best known who brings the most to others, it is the one who contributes enthusiasm and joy. Check out The Humble Moviegoer at our ROAMcare website.

Choose your case scenarios

Michael 9 Comments

With all that’s wrong in the world, it’s easy to want to consider the worst-case scenario. When was the last time you considered the best-case scenario? I realize I spend a lot of digital energy bringing up some pretty bad things that are happening. Given the chuckle crew based in Washington DC, it’s just too easy not to find laughingly stupid, or stupidly laughing examples of criminal behavior, let alone their usual level of just dumb crap. Given all of that, good things still do happen.

Among all the wars, conflicts, skirmishes, and scuffles going on, Cambodia and Thailand signed an immediate and unconditional ceasefire on July 28th following military activity along a disputed border. Yay, peace without insisting someone say “thank you” first.

Following months of reports regarding the unconscionable shifting of previously targeted humanitarian aid (aka money) to blood-sucking billionaires, word comes of a new medical school just opened that aims to train new doctors on preventative medicine funding by (be still, my heart) a billionaire! Walmart heiress Alice Walton put up the money for the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine. So she’s not modest about it. We’ll give her that. At least she’s spending her own money.

If other cash-rich American have an altruistic streak in them, there is a opportunity in Vermont. Realizing how spotty cell phone service is in his area, Vermonter Patrick Schlott bought an old pay phone and installed it outside a local general store using a device that doe some magic and changes an internet connection to an (old-fashion) analog telephone line. He then removed the coin-operation mechanism and free phone service was available where previously no cell phone service existed. 370 calls were made from the phone in June, many of them students who needed a pickup from a parent. Schlott would like to expand the project if he can figure out financing. Billionaires of America, here’s your chance to prove you’re human too.

While we are discouraging alternate energy sources, nay, actually encouraging energy dependance on dead dinosaurs, for the first time ever, June saw solar energy become the largest source of electricity in the European Union, supplying a record 22 percent of power. At least 13 countries saw solar output hit a new monthly high in June, with solar amounting to more than 40 percent of the power generated in the Netherlands! Take that T. Rex!

While we find more ways to close parks and remove finding for environmental projects, for the first time in over a century, Parisians and tourists will be able to take a dip in the Seine. The river is opening up as a summertime swim spot following a 1.4 billion euro ($1.5 billion) cleanup project.

So there are good things happening and positive influences around the world. Even in America (gasp!) What prompted my foray down the sunny side of the street? Life on the Sunny Side, this week’s Uplift post of course. We explored how by saying, thinking, and doing positive words, thoughts, and actions, we can shift the focus to looking for those best-case scenarios. Give it a read. Please.

 

Present Tense

Michael 3 Comments

I did it again. I was working on a project for the foundation and man, did it ring true. Naturally they are supposed to be relatable. If not, the topics brought up there would hardly be inspirational and that’s the whole point of it. Sometimes, ‘relatable’ and ‘chill-inducing’ cross paths and it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up and take notice.  And believe me, when you don’t have much of it, you notice where your hairs are doing something.

Three weeks ago, we posted to the ROAMcare website and social media accounts the message:

Days don’t check in with your calendar or daily to do list. They go where they will and your only choice is to go where they take you. You take what’s given and make the most and the best of each one and every day you still show up because every day is a gift.

 It’s not the most profound thought in the world. Everybody has heard the old saw, “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present.’” So said First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. And so said billions and billions of others since. Okay so maybe not quite that many people but a lot of people have worked “today is a gift, that’s why we call it the present” into speeches, articles, and the occasional blog post.

In this particular blog, just two weeks ago, I opened a post with these words:

Do you ever do something and surprise yourself at how profound you are? Me neither, but I did something that really had me thinking for a few days. I kept saying to myself “Yeah, that’s me, damn it. I can do better!”

Truer words were probably spoken but I can’t recall when unless they were those same words a week earlier when we were batting around the “Days don’t check in…” and I found myself going back to those three little sentences over and again for days! Yes, once again I said to myself, “Self,” I said, “that’s me!”

Days indeed go where they will, they don’t check in, and we’re only along for the ride. But here’s the thing. We aren’t in control of the ride and that annoys the dickens out of a lot of people. Our intent with that now three week old post was to acknowledge our lack of control, but in exchange we get an opportunity to make the best of each day as it comes. As with so much of life, that is an opportunity easier granted than accepted. It certainly makes sense, but how can we show up every day and make the most of it. And still I pondered.

Those mental meanderings brought us to this week’s entry on the ROAMcare site. This week we expanded on that thought from early May with:

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present.’” Eleanor Roosevelt knew what she was talking about. For over 8,000 Americans, tomorrow won’t come. Transform “It can wait till later” into “There’s no time like the present!” If you want to do something, if you need to say something, today is a great day to do it, a great day to say it, a great day to go for it! Today is the gift!!

It doesn’t seem to say much more than we already said but oh, yes, it does! It comes right out and says, “There’s no time like the present…do it…say it…go for it!” If you don’t, you may never get the chance again. (And will notice, we gave credit to Mrs. R.)  

At the risk of looking back rather than ahead, please always remember, “You can’t change the past. You can only learn from it.” (Now that quote has been attributed to all manner of people and the words always get changed just a teeny bit.) Really you can’t change the past. You can’t play “what if” with something that’s already happened. You can’t ask for a do-over from life.

In my life, there have been many times when the right moment for the right words or the right gesture presented itself and I chose to wait for a better opportunity, when the boss is in a better mood, when the sun is a little brighter, the words chosen a little better, or the setting a little more perfect. Second chances don’t happen. Once upon a time I wrote a blog post claiming the odds of anything and everything in life happening are 50/50. Everything from hitting the lottery to meeting your soulmate can be boiled down to it will, or it won’t. There is no it might if I wait for things to be just a little better. Once the moment is gone, the moment is gone. Once the present becomes the past, it is untouchable but until the future becomes today, it is unreachable.

Your only chance is to do it, say it, go for it today, because today is the gift of all gifts, the gift you’ve been given, the one and only time you control. And that is a most wonderful present.

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