Dear Club Members and Friends:
While at my sister’s house for Easter, I often heard a phrase proudly and
joyfully yelled across living rooms, restaurants, stores, and church common
rooms. This expression, once
uttered, elicited many congratulations, pats on the back, high-fives, and
rounds of applause to its speaker, none of which is behavior normally
experienced in my daily corporate, grown-up life, nor is the sentence
itself: “I went pee-pee on the potty!”
Think of all the time you
have spent cheering on the children in your life. Hundreds of times a day, a child of any
age does amazing things which deserve our positive feedback—learning a
letter and pointing it out on your t-shirt, putting away his toys (at least
one or two before moving on to other things), helping her brother reach the
cookie box from the pantry shelf (she’ll share after she gets her cut off
the top!), making contact with the baseball and running safely to first
base, getting up and dusting off after she falls off her new princess bike
again!, and reciting a new song you just taught him one time during your
last visit to Grandma’s house. Do
you spend even half that amount cheering on other adults—your spouse, your
neighbors, yourself?
Or do you spend more time
knocking people down? Chewing them
out? Beating them up? Telling them off? Throwing them under the bus? Rolling them over a barrel? Holding their hands to the fire? I love quotes and get a kick out of the
fact that everyone participating in online message boards has their own “tag
line”. Here’s one I recently noticed
and plan to put into better practice:
There
is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting
people up! And don’t we all need more cardio?!?
Mr. Rogers (you know,
from the TV ‘Hood) wasn’t an extroverted
cheerleader-type with pom-poms in his hands (in fact, he most often held
sneakers or fish food), but he did always have respect, love, and kindness
for others—young or old, able-bodied or handi-capped,
foreign or American, rich or poor, even if your name was Mr. McFeeley or Henrietta Pussycat. (Side trivia notes: Fred’s middle name
was McFeeley, named after his maternal
grandfather, and he was color-blind.)
We all have this ability
within us. It doesn’t cost anything
to give someone a word of encouragement or support, a smile or a
prayer. But the effect from that
moment of concern and thoughtfulness can be amazing and long-lasting. Another quote I like: Do what you can
with what you have wherever you are.
The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as
we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape
parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen
our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone
just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our
unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life
merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too
often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a
listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of
which have a potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider
the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt. –
Leo Buscaglia
Won’t you be my neighbor?
~ Sandy
