It IS All About You
In this month of gratitude, I have to say that as much as I love nature and its beauty, the peace and serenity it brings to me, and the cleansing it gives my soul, it is not the foremost joy-bringer in my life.
As much as I love to read, and write, and immerse myself in the magic of the written word—as much as it has shaped my life—it is not the primary force that has made me who I am.
I once saw a quiz asking questions such as: who had won the Olympic Gold Medal ten years ago, or who had won the Nobel prize, the Pulitzer, etc. I was embarrassed to realize that I truly had no idea on most of the questions.
Then the quiz asked the name of the teacher who had made the greatest difference in my life, the coach who inspired me to do more than I thought I could, the person I could turn to—no matter what, no matter when.
Those I knew.
Every one of them.
And then it asked who had the greatest impact on my life. The medal winners? Or the others? Who, it asked, inspired me the most?
I bet your answers would be very similar to mine.
Reality? The big names that flash in the limelight do not inspire me.
The people that affect me, that inspire me, that I try to model specific parts of myself after are not celebrities or medal winners. They are not famous.
They are…
My family.
My teachers, my colleagues, my students.
Those people with whom I’ve worked on Habitat for Humanity houses, and those I argued with in class.
The ones I’ve worshipped with and the ones I’ve worked with.
The ones who laugh with me until the tears run so fast and deep that we have to pull the car off the road to keep from wrecking.
Those people who’ve held me as I cried over my teenage children, and the ones who scooped up my toddler and said, “Why don’t you let me keep him for an hour or two so you can get some rest?”
The ones who remember when my children’s birthdays are.
The ones who sat with me in the bleachers while we watched our kids compete in school sports, or play in the band, or sing in the choir.
The preschoolers who bounced down my staircase on their behinds, the kids who splashed in our creek, and the teens who danced upstairs.
The friends who answered my phone call from the hospital in the small, dark hours of the night.
The ones who’ve sat at my table.
The ones who said, “Sure you can. Just do it.”
I was recently told that as a female writer, I would not appear professional if I wrote about my mother, my spouse, or my children.
As though a professional is not affected by the people they love, who share their lives and their homes.
As though, somehow, writing about people I love would make me less.
But if my parents did not inspire me to seek a career and embrace creativity, who did?
If my children had not disclosed a hidden reserve of strength and decisiveness in me that I had no idea existed, who would have?
If I had not learned with my spouse what it meant to work through conflict with respect and commitment, who else would have made that journey with me?
It is thanks to so many people and the way they’ve touched my life that I am who I am.
While I constantly endeavor to evolve, to learn and grow, and reach towards becoming a better human, as well as a professional, it is through the interactions with other people that I have learned the most.
They have helped me grow, and made me stronger.
I have not lived alone on a mountainside, reveling in nature without being touched by other people. Nor has the written word ever impacted me as deeply as the mere touch of my newborn’s hand. And no job, no career, no profession could have such a molding on my person as they have without the people I met through those jobs.
And I will be forever grateful.
For all of you.
I only hope that I am passing that same blessing on to other people. I am not striving for a big award or a shiny medal. Are you?
Who had the most positive effect on your life? Want to tell us about them and what they did for you?
How are you going to pass it on?
Tell us about it in the Comments box below.
