Episodes
Wednesday Jan 09, 2013
My Best Self by Dane Allred
Wednesday Jan 09, 2013
Wednesday Jan 09, 2013
LITERATURE OUT LOUD
Click here for a complete INDEX
Audio of this piece is available at the bottom of the post.Welcome to Abundance, a program of 1001 Thanks. This is a celebration of the good things happening in your life and the world. I am your host, Dane Allred. I believe you can change your life and the world by celebrating the joy, the happiness, the positive parts of this wonderful journey we call life.
In just a moment, we'll be discussing a presentation I give called “My Best Self”. In ten parts, I document how we know when we are being our best selves. Each of the letters of the “My Best Self” phrase represents one of the qualities which helps us be our best selves.
How do we know if we are being our "Best Selves"?
The “M” in “My Best Self” stands for:
Makes a difference.
Now you need to know that you , individually you; the person I'm talking to right now; you do make a difference. There is a reason you are here at this time and this place. Someone once said it this way, “Being you is so difficult that no one in the universe has ever attempted it before.” Now when you find the purpose for your life, you will see the difference you can make in the lives of others and in this world. And now that I think about it, since I’ve injured myself so many times, the purpose of my life may only be to serve as a warning to others. If I can make that difference, it may save you from stabbing yourself in the hand with a spading pitchfork, getting a free bath in the carwash, or from being stranded on a windsurfer overnight on Utah Lake.
That's why the “Y” in “My Best Self” stands for:
Yearns to be better
We all yearn to be better, to be more than we are. We may measure our success against the successes of others, but the person we really need to be compared to is ourselves – the person we were yesterday. Can we ask ourselves, and answer this question honestly, are we better today than yesterday?
It would seem to me that this journey of how to be better would have an ending, where we end up being our best selves, but due to the vicissitudes of life, we become better at some things. We lose our ability to do other things.
So your yearning to be better might need to be associated with limitation. Like the time I saw a student do a back-flip on-stage I remembered that I could do back flips when I was young. Now smacking my face on the stage halfway through the flip reminded me I am 30 years older and 50 pounds heavier than my back flip days. This isn’t to say I couldn’t do back flips again, but that time may have passed.
You know what you want to be better at. You really do, and that nagging guilt and conscience that tells you "I need to work on this"; that's what you're yearning for, and you probably also know what you need to do to get to that point. If you aren’t sure what you want to be better at, you might want to find someone who can point out to you your talents. Then decide how to be better; you can get a coach, take lessons, go back to school, just focus and do it. You know what you want. Get out there and get it done. That's why we're blessed with all this abundance.
Now the “B” in “My Best Self” stands for:
Believes in my potential
Once you know what you want to do or what you can do, believing in your own potential is the next step. Self-doubt has shot down many more dreams than someone saying “no” to your idea. A lot of times we'll say no to ourself thousands of times before we actually give somebody else the opportunity to say no, in the fear that they may say "Yes". Believe in yourself, because no one else has your potential, your goals, your vision. Who else can accomplish what you are here to do?
The “E” in “My Best Self” stands for:
Entertains new ideas
To be your best self, you may have to entertain some new ideas. For example, I was the first in my family to graduate from college. That new idea gave me the opportunities I have today, and since I believed in myself and my potential, there really never was a time when I didn’t think I would graduate and be gainfully employed. Again, there were challenges to that, called job interviews, and I did wind up working out of state for a couple of years because I had to go where the opportunities were. But there was a time when it became a new idea to me, and I can even recall when this happened. The ASVAB test is given by the armed services; I believe it stands for the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. This test predicted I had the mechanical aptitude to be in the service. So I got lots of mail from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and that's one of the reasons they give the test is so they can get recruits. But thanks to that test, which also included an interest survey, I was told I could be a lawyer. This new idea had never occurred to me, and once planted, I knew I could do it. But that would involve college, and so I had to finagle my way into an AP History and AP English class. That way I could get some college credit while I was still in high school. Combined with the College Level Education Program tests, the CLEP tests I took in college, I tested out of a year of school. I finished my undergraduate degree in three years.
The strange thing about this whole process is, remember, this idea led me to college, but then another new idea presented itself to me. I enjoyed my student teaching so much; I never again wanted to be a lawyer. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a lawyer if that idea has captured your imagination. So be open to the new ideas that appear in your life. Your potential is trying to get your attention.
The “S” in “My Best Self” stands for:
Strives for perfection
Once you have chosen a path, there’s no reason really not to be the very best at what you do. Being our best selves means not being our second best self. It doesn't mean we have to be better than somebody else but we're always striving to perfect what we do. If we dig ditches, there may be some new technique you may discover that will change the world of ditch digging. Search for the new ways, there's new techniques, there's new approaches. There's always going to be a demand for those who have new innovations, and if you have that new idea, it may be time to share it with the world. Remember, you are here for a reason. Find it, and perfect yourself, and perfect the world. We all need it.
So how? How do we do this? This is where the next step applies.
The “T” in “My Best Self” stands for:
Trusts in the Creative
This is where your higher power, if it's God, Allah, Vishnu, even just a concept of supreme being or creator, even if you have no religious tradition, I believe you can connect with your creative side; this has been called inspiration or the muses. As you seek new ideas, trust in your inner creativity to connect with this higher power. It'll give you an inspiring, new or creative idea.
Where did that idea come from, is what we need to ask ourselves? If you think it came from you, that’s fine with me, but I believe each of us is a channel for the creative process to manifest itself in this universe. If you talk to authors, lyricists, musicians, dancers, choreographers, and other creative people, you'll often hear of the process of creativity described as a collaboration and sometimes even just "notation-taking". The end result is often much different than anticipated by the artist, and this creativity is an exciting chance for you to connect with whatever it is that guides our creativity.
Now I'll give you an example. I once wrote a murder mystery which was hi-jacked by one of the minor characters. It was supposed to be about a high school teacher, but instead the teacher ends up being a minor character in the plot and the local police officer actually becomes the hero and center of the story. Writing is an amazing process which I enjoy immensely, but I would never take all the credit for what I write. It’s not just me. I will never take the credit for the collaboration I have as I create, and I don’t know how; I don't know why it works, but I am grateful to receive the help because most of the time I really need it.
So if you'll just trust that creative ideas will come to you; ways and means to implement the reasons, the ideas, the purposes you have for being here; I actually believe it will be manifest in your life. I know it sound really short-sighted to say it in such a simple way, but I really have no other way to describe it besides, "Go out and do it. Try it and see if it works for you."
The “S” in “My Best Self” stands for:
Succeeds and celebrates success
This second "S" may seem like a contradiction. If we credit a higher power with help in creativity, why would we celebrate a success that is not wholly ours? Think about the last person you tried to compliment. Did they accept the praise, or did they try to deflect it? Celebrating success means taking credit for the successes you've had up to this point. You need to think about what has led you to this point. There is a string of success trailing behind you. To deny those minor and major victories cheapens the work you've done so far in this life. Remember, to be alive and kickin' today when there's people in this world who weren't alive and kickin' this morning when they tried to wake up. These are victories we need to celebrate along the way.
Reward yourself and accept that praise. Even if you don't believe it, just say, “Thank you.” That small validation really goes a long way to help you on your way to your future success. We don't want to deny the compliments of other people. It's a really bad human tendency. If we can accept compliments and give compliments, I think celebration of those successes are very, very good. If I can just figure out a way to stop celebrating my successes with food, I'll be in really good shape. When I have a success, that's one of my favorite things to do; is to buy something and eat it.
The “E” in “My Best Self”, the second "E", stands for:
Expects great things to happen
An expectation of success is really key to achievement. Self-doubt short circuits the path you need to follow to make ideas succeed, and doubts usually involve some kind of past failures.
So rather than doubt yourself, think about this phrase. When they say “Today is the first day of the rest of your life”, this means this new day is the only day given to you to use. This day. You can’t access tomorrow yet, and to let the past shackle today is to deny the miracle of waking up another day.
So expect some great things. There's a reason you woke up today. Expect that great things will manifest themselves in your life. Write them down. Contemplate them. Improve them. Expect those things, and do things in your life to make them happen.
The “L” in “My Best Self” stands for:
Learns from everyone
Without a human connection, and without admitting that we can learn from everyone, I think you have sold short your biggest asset in this universe. If it was just me, if it was just you that was here to do stuff, there wouldn't be a reason for all these other people.
I know there are people who think they know it all. I think this is a really sad attitude, because I have learned something from every person I have ever met, if I was paying attention. Now if I’m not paying attention, I might miss one of the major lessons about to be given to me that day.
For the last few days, it's been my great blessing to notice many other people succeeding with what some people would call a handicap. These are people who are "handicapable" if that's your choice of words.
I'm not sure why all of these people were presented to me this week, but in an amazing collection of “coincidences”, the dozen people I saw during this last week inspired me to think about how blessed my life really is.
I have full use of all of my limbs; which may surprise some of you who have listened to my “adventures”. My health is good. I have a good diet. I have access to medication. I have doctors if I need them. And again, we take more things for granted each day than anyone in the ancient world ever could have imagined. It’s time to start paying attention and learn from the person standing in front of us.
What can we learn? What's the lesson being taught by the words, actions and life of the people we meet each day? Some of them may just be negative lessons, and we'll determine that's something we don't want to be in our life. Have we learned what they are trying to teach us? I believe they must be in our lives for some reason. This includes people you may not be happy are in your life. Let’s take some time and learn from them and maybe we can get on to the next lesson.
To get a little less serious for a second here, I'm going to summarize "My Best Self" by going to the “F” in “My Best Self”. I'm not sure why it came out this way, but the "F" in "My Best Self" stands for:
Fearlessly forges forcefully forward
I really believe the old axiom, "If you're not moving forward, you're going backward," so fearlessly forge forcefully forward.
While the frequent use of the letter “F” may be the only thing you notice about the last part of “My Best Self”, this may be one of the most important parts. Fear really is something that paralyzes us into inaction. We're afraid to approach someone; we're afraid to try a new idea; we're afraid to do whatever it is that's causing that fear. Fear paralyzes us into that inaction, and how can we be our best self if we are unable to act on the ideas we are given?
Here's a few other "F" words to try and help you understand how to forge fearlessly and forcefully forward.
Ferociously facilitates foresighted, foundational, futuristic, flawless focus; forever.
Which to me means don't get distracted. There's plenty of things in this world to help us be distracted. Surprisingly, a lot of those things tend to be on television, and on our computer, and on the Internet, and on the radio. Focus and don't get distracted.
I also believe furthermore, feverishly factoring future fundamentally feeble-minded frugality is important. We realize that everyone in the world does have a budget and you're going to have to understand what's available to you; what you can do and can't do because of frugality; maybe the frugality of somebody else; maybe your own frugality. Maybe our income is only limited by the amount of money we think we should make. Maybe our potential is only limited by the potential we feel we really have.
Also, I think some "F"'s that would help us are
we "Foresees favorable feedback which fosters fertile futures."
I really seriously believe in being positive. It really is more than just my blood type. If you're positive, and you think about favorable, fertile futures, I think those things tend to manifest themselves in your life if you'll give them a chance to take root.
Negativity, doubt, all of those things can really short circuit a lot of this process.
I think you should "forecast fumbling, fanatical, fixated ferocity from formidable factionaries."
To me that just means, anticipate some opposition. Be glad for that opposition, because unless we bounce our ideas off someone else and they make us defend what we're thinking about embracing in our lives; maybe their feedback is really what we need. But again, we are not going to let their negativity stop us from doing what we need to do.
I think that things like this fascinate future feckless, feeble-minded, fickle, fawning, full-blooded freaks.
If you can make it interesting I think there's are a lot of people who are going to try to find out what's going on with that. For some reason, things that are interesting give us some distraction, but also give us some enjoyment. So, I can't think of another reason why, as I was pursuing one of my great distractions this week, cruising around on YouTube, why a website called Brainiac would explode watermelons with dynamite in slow motion to classical music. It was very interesting to watch, but again, there's a lot of things people will watch just because they want to see it.
We're talking about "My Best Self" and focusing on finally the "F" of "My Best Self". This program is meant to emphasize the positive and I hope we're having a good time today raising your spirits on Abundance with Dane Allred. Today we've been talking about "My Best Self" and we are about to finish up what is the "F" in "My Best Self". I've been tossing around a few "F" words, but not the kind you're thinking of.
I think that if you are your "Best Self" you would frequently foster formal, full on, full out, full-tilt, full-circle, full blown, full-bore, forward-looking freedom for faithful fellows.
What that all means is I think you would really encourage others. If "Your Best Self" is not encouraging the ideas of other people, I'm not sure that is "Your Best Self".
We've already discussed distractions so you do need to factor frequent fantasies from fumbling, flabbergasted fools. Watch for those fantasies, don't let them distract you.
Fanatically feature familiar face-to-face fictions, which means you may need to tell your story to somebody over and over again to help inspire them. We used that word inspire earlier in the program and if you think about the way we use the word inspiration, we not only use "inspire" and "expire" as a way to describe breathing in and breathing out.
But, a breath of fresh air, "inspiration", can be something that comes and rejuvenates us.
So make sure you are inspiring and rejuvenating those people who are supporting you. Fervently, fervidly, foster fantasy, fluency, faithfulness, familiarity, fastidiousness, fearlessness, fortitude, forgiveness, felicity, friendliness, functionality, and forthrightness in those friendly followers. In other words, help them be their best selves.
Even though I don't like to get into negative talk too much, I would ask you to forbid fright, fumbling, fear, fatalism, fuming, foreswearing, forsaking, feigning, frustration, flouncing, fleering, flashiness, forlornness, fraudulence, flippancy, frailty, flattery, foolishness, and fearfulness.
I believe those all short-circuit your reason for being here.
As we sit and talk about our best self, I'm going to finish up explaining maybe why some of my adventures might seem really foolhardy to some of you out there. In future editions of Abundance we'll be discussing how to be our best self, but I would discuss just briefly why it is maybe you can dismiss all the things I talk about because when you have no brain you have no pain.
I flunked the same English class twice, and that's another reason why you could say, "Well, this guy can't even pass an English class, I'm not sure why I'm listening to him."
But this may be the best reason for you to go ahead and discount any of this that may be inspiring to you, but you don't really want to go act on it.
I used to be the victim of frequent sinus infections. I would go in to the doctor once or twice a year and get some antibiotics. The doctor wanted to try and figure out what was exactly wrong with my sinuses.
I wouldn't recommend this because it really has changed my life. If the doctor asks to x-ray your head, put some serious thought into that.
What he had me do was tip my head back, my chin up in the air, and he took an x-ray of the top of my skull. If you feel up above your eyebrows, your sinuses go to about that part of your head. If you've had a sinus headache, you've had pain right there, and you know what I'm talking about. They're pictured on television with all of these sinus remedies and all the different kinds of things that can help you with those. I have to tell you that I am personally acquainted with nearly every kind of anti-histamine and allergy medications ever been made.
Once the doctor took this picture, he came back shaking his head. He had this picture in his hand of my skull, and he said, "This is the picture of your sinuses."
And I said, "Well, what's wrong?"
He said, "Well, you know how most people have sinuses up to their eyebrows?" He said, "You've got sinuses all the way up to your receding hairline", which explained quite a bit.
I mean if you think about it, if you've got more sinuses, then you're going to have more sinus infections, more ability to gather all kinds of the nasty stuff that gives us infections. But the reason I'm really not going to encourage you to have your doctor inform you about your own head x-rays.
Think about this. I have extra sinuses, and I don't have a fantastically huge head, so logical reasoning follows that I think I have less brains than everybody else, too, because there's only so much space up there.
Stabbing yourself in the hand, getting stuck on a windsurfer in the middle of Utah Lake, skiing down a mountain-side on rocks, skiing down a mountainside in snow without any skiing instruction, and all the various ways I've hurt myself probably have good reason now. If you think about that, it doesn't take much brain to throw yourself into the air and flip your body around and land on your cheekbone because somebody you saw is doing a back flip and you "used could do those, too". I "used could", too .
As we think about our abilities and freedoms, I really want you to think about what you need to accomplish this week. Confront those fears you have about doing those things. I need you to go out and find all the reasons we have to be thankful for this abundant life. I believe you can change your life and the world by celebrating that joy, that happiness and those positive parts of this wonderful journey we call life.
Abundance is a way to emphasize what we like in our life. We want to eliminate the negativity and pessimism; we're really trying to accentuate the positive.
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Click on the player to hear My Best SelfThursday Dec 20, 2012
What is Abundance?
Thursday Dec 20, 2012
Thursday Dec 20, 2012
LITERATURE OUT LOUD
Click here for a complete INDEX
Audio of this piece is available at the bottom of the post.Welcome to Abundance, a program of 1001 Thanks. This is a celebration of the good things happening in your life and the world. I am your host, Dane Allred. I believe you can change your life and the world by celebrating the joy, the happiness, the positive parts of this wonderful journey we call life.
I thought today on Abundance we would go ahead and try and define what I think Abundance is -- a couple of words pop into my mind as I try and decide what my life philosophy is and how it's reflected in the things that I do and the things that I say.
I think the Abundance I'm speaking of in this life has a lot to do with compassion for other people, their situations, for all kinds of things that happen in the world and especially for people whose are in circumstances beyond their control. I think a lot of times that can be helped with humor, and you know humor plays a big part in my life.
I also believe tolerance and forgiveness are excellent ways to make the more abundant life happen in your neck of the woods.
Today, as we talk about Abundance, you may be wondering what does Dane Allred mean when he says "Abundance".
Well, to me, my life is full. I have an abundance of what many cultures have defined as a full life. For peoples of the past to imagine our lives would have been impossible.
Think of this. Most of us have never spent a day in hunger. When we sleep at night, many of us sleep soundly and securely. We spend lifetimes that are two, three and four times longer than our ancestors. We have luxuries unknown in the past.
I am blessed with having a loving wife and children as well as a supportive extended family. My wife and daughters have opportunities denied to woman since the beginning of civilization. As a people, we can move freely anywhere we choose; we can choose where we live; we can choose where we work, and to me, in this world of abundance, it seems our opportunities are only limited by our creativity.
One of the measures of abundance is modern technology and if you think about it, most of the modern technology that we have today are marvels which would have been like miracles to anyone from the past. For example, I communicate with my family on a cellular phone, which means if my mother is on a boat on a lake and she has her phone, I can contact her. I can ask how the fishing is today. Think of all the things a modern day cellular phone can do, just by itself. It has a calendar; it has games; it receives and sends instant messages. I can compose my thoughts; I can write with a stylus or a small keyboard; those important ideas are preserved; instead in the past maybe lost forever. On my phone I can access the internet. I can contact Google or Wikipedia for instant answers to my questions and I don’t have to ask somebody else, and I don't have to go to the library, or continue in ignorance. The world really is at my fingertips, and not many of us really appreciate the fact that we have such an abundance of information in our reach, but maybe it is because there is so much that we are kind of overloaded.
I don’t fear the dreaded diseases of the past, wondering if they are going to take me or my family without warning. Even when my wife was diagnosed with stage four bone cancer fifteen years ago, the best treatments available were used since I am part of a risk-pool, and so insurance provides the money for the cures. Now she lives today because we live in this modern world.
Another example, My sister was spared with a liver transplant. I am the beneficiary of several types of modern medications which regulate my blood pressure, my allergies and even the size of my prostate. And I know that may be too much information, but if you consider the state of medicine even two centuries ago, blood-letting was the most common and most popular treatment for ailments, and for those who are unfamiliar with the process, blood-letting means you probably have too much blood; let's let some out and see if you get better.
Just think about the marvels of the modern world. I can speed across counties and states. I can fly to other nations in hours if I wish, instead of counting the journeys in days or months. Now, I have visited places in the world most of the present population of the world today will only be able to read about, even if they can read. I intend to visit many more.
I am also a citizen of a country which protects the rights of all, not just a selected few. So I think freedoms are part of our abundance. I have been given opportunities that somebody in my social position would never have been given in other times and other countries.
Because of college scholarships and grant monies that is paid for by taxes, I was able to go to college, and now I'm a high school and college teacher.
Now I am able because of those opportunities to earn a good living for my family. I pay taxes. I support my government, the police, the military, the public services, public education, and I am so blessed to live in a place where I can say and I can write what I wish without government censorship.
So, when we talk about Abundance, it's not just the things we have, the freedoms we enjoy, but also, the ability we have to make a difference.
Believe it or not, I am actually really grateful for work. Many of us in the modern day define ourselves by our work. I'd be a much different person without my opportunity to work and satisfying day of work is one of the most rewarding parts of my life, and it's because I enjoy my work and I hope you do something that you enjoy, too.
So, basically, as we look at the abundance of the world and the universe, I'm only limited by my imagination how I want to spend my life. I have leisure time unimagined even by kings of the past. I enjoy work so much I have invented other work for myself. I buy and sell things on eBay. I have thousands of satisfied customer ratings. I teach part-time at a local university. I've written an online public speaking course. I've written quotations books, mystery novels, an auto-biography of the fifty ways I've injured myself. I have a website.
I have time, because of our modern economy and the shortened work day, I am able to perform things like a one-man show of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. I regularly post on a website read by hundreds of thousands of people every day. I'm paid to perform in commercials, movies, stage plays and musicals and I've been in over 30 movies and more than 70 stage productions. I've been in world premiere shows. I've sung on an original cast album. I've won awards as a gardener, a poet, a teacher.
I've run three marathons and lots of footraces. I was privileged to run the Olympic Flame for the 2002 Winter Olympics. With all the other careers I've had in life as flower and package deliverer. I've been a gas station attendant. Most of my life has been spent teaching high school and college students.
And I cannot read the list of these opportunities that I have been given in my life without wondering why I have been blessed when others, and millions and hundreds of millions and billions of others of people live lives of poverty and oppression, sometimes only because they were born halfway around the world from here.
So I know that one of my life’s purposes is to proclaim my thanks for all my blessings. I'm going to concentrate on the positive and to do otherwise would really be to be an ungrateful recipient of all this bounty.
And that's what really led me to create this show, Abundance, and I have a list of 1001 thanks. It's the 1001 things I have listed that remind me why I should keep a positive attitude and try to inspire others to see the good in the world, instead of focusing on the negative.
My life hasn't been a bed of roses. I could complain about my aches and pains. Like I said, I've written a book about the fifty ways I've injured myself, and I didn't do this to catalog the misery of my short fifty years on the planet. It's to remind me I am still alive and kicking. I should be grateful for every day that I have been given and I hope to inspire in you this same optimism, to help you realize the bounty of this corner of the universe. Together there really is nothing we cannot accomplish.
I am not here to urge you to ignore the problems of your life, or the problems of the world. But I seriously believe carping, negativism and blaming will never solve anything. So join me on this journey to document our thanks.
Next time -- My Best SelfLITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature Audio narrations with synchronized visual text
The Complete Collection of
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
all 154 poems
$3.99 DVD
with FREE shipping
Click on Amazon Payment button to order
LITERATURE OUT LOUD
Click here for a complete INDEX
Audio of this piece is available at the bottom of the post.
Essential Oils -- create your own business -- click on the logo to begin
What is Abundance?Thursday Jun 16, 2011
Make A Positive Contribution -- Part One
Thursday Jun 16, 2011
Thursday Jun 16, 2011
My Best Self
by Dane Allred
M -- Make a Positive Contribution
Eleanor Roosevelt once said “When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.”
We are here for a reason. There is something only we can do, because the universe decided we needed to be here at this time, occupying this body in the place we appeared. There was no one else who could be us, with our unique collections of experiences, problems, pains and perceptions. We are the amalgamation of all that we have experienced. Our unique perspective from which we see the world as we look out at all the other people in the world is truly only our own.
The M in My Best Self is a great starting point to reaching our best self because it makes us get outside ourselves. To be our best self, we may need to consider what we do for all the others who are on this spinning marble with us.
This doesn’t mean your positive contribution can’t be something you are doing all the time, or that you can’t make money doing it. But making a positive contribution is more than having a job which will generate taxes for governments to use for others. It means specifically thinking about making this world a better place not just for ourselves, but for others, too.
These don’t have to be world changing events. They can be small, medium or large, but the impact is still the same for us. We are doing something we value and trying to make a positive contribution to one person or more. It doesn’t matter if it changes the world; it may only matter because it changes us.
Your contribution may be something small, and though it may seem small to you, it should mean something to someone else besides you.
I like to garden. I have plenty of free time in the summer since I’m a school teacher. I have a nice yard, and time to do the things it needs. People often ask me in a joking way to come over to their house when I’m done if I want some more yard work.
It’s funny, but it does prove the point. Most people don’t like doing yard work like I do, or maybe I just have a positive attitude about doing something I know needs to be done. I also know that if I do it, I’ll feel better about myself and the yard – a true win/win.
This week I weeded around my mailbox, but since I have been taking care of it for a while, there wasn’t much to do. Technically, my mailbox is right on the edge of my neighbor’s yard, but I couldn’t let the bare patch of weeds stay that way for long. As the flowerbed around the mailbox grew, let’s just say the only direction it could grow was away from my house.
So when neighbors saw me outside weeding a flowerbed in front of my neighbor’s house, they actually said to me, “Why are you weeding someone else’s yard?” To myself I said, “Why not?” If the neighbor didn’t like it, they could tell me to stop.
I spent another couple of hours this week weeding another flowerbed we share along the property line by the mailbox. The couple who owns the house is away during the summer, and I took it upon myself to make what could be a weedy patch look more like a flower garden. A little at a time, I have weeded, planted and watered this strip until it really compliments both of our yards.
And some may say I was doing this only to make my own yard look better, but making a positive contribution can also benefit us. It may not seem selfless, but I really didn’t have to do it. I just wanted to. I put in a couple of hours, and for the rest of the summer, everyone will get to enjoy some flowers instead of the weeds.
Here’s a medium example along the same lines. My neighbor around the corner fell and hurt his back at work, and though he probably could have hired someone to mow his lawn, I decided to do it instead. I didn’t ask him for permission, but just mowed it one day. No one came outside and protested, so I did it again the next week.
It’s more than a couple of hours weeding, but it really isn’t a tremendous amount of time. My lawn is huge, so I spend an hour cutting my lawn every week. Mowing his added about fifteen minutes to my lawn-mowing. But that fifteen minutes were incredibly productive.
It made me feel good, and it made a positive contribution to his life, too. I probably mowed it twenty times during the summer. I didn’t mow it the next summer, but by then he was able to take care of it himself.
So the difference we make doesn’t have to be a lifetime commitment. It may be an afternoon weeding, or a summer mowing. I like to perform, and I feel my talents are best used when I get the chance to bring some of the characters from the stage to life for others. There is a great feeling when you perform, and it’s not just the endorphins rushing through your body. I feel at home on the stage, and delight in making people laugh.
But I don’t usually get paid to perform. I have acted in dozens of stage plays and musicals, and the majority of them have been my volunteered time. The venues do collect money for the performances, but most stages work with thread-bare margins so those would be wiped out by paying a salary. So most of the people I work with in stage productions are also not paid.
So perfecting a role for the stage is probably a medium effort, since it involves many weeks of rehearsals at night and on week-ends, plus the time spent during performances. The show I am currently doing started rehearsals about four months ago. We spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights rehearsing, plus some time on Saturday mornings. As the performances approached, we were rehearsing every night for three or four hours. Now that the show is up, we are performing three times a week – about nine or ten hours total.
But the rewards of this kind of effort are off the scale in terms of returns. I am having the time of my life, playing a part I have really want to play. The theatre is enjoying the fruits of our labors, and may be able to continue as a community theatre for another fifty years. This kind of a contribution can extend into the future, but if it shut down tomorrow I would still have volunteered the time.
Plus the audiences get to see a good show – even if it is vain of me to say so. We are getting so many great plaudits from audience members I want to remind them they paid to come and see this and deserved a good show. But in some way, they know they are getting more than their money's worth, and the want to acknowledge it.
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece Make A Positive ContributionTuesday Sep 08, 2009
My Best Self part two
Tuesday Sep 08, 2009
Tuesday Sep 08, 2009
LITERATURE OUT LOUD
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