YOU NEVER KNOW
Sometimes for fun, I imagine all the topics I might someday write a book about. This week it was actually a column idea where people write in about their experiences of change, transformation or enlightenment that the catalyst never knew they sponsored.
This originated in a conversation with a good friend who had recently received a thank you letter from a former client. They hadn’t been in touch for a while however, he had been faithfully reading her newsletter for years. He wanted her to know how much it meant to him and the changes he experienced from reading and applying her wisdom to his life.
This is what I mean – there are moments where we make a difference in someone’s life that we have no idea we just provoked. Years ago, I remember reading about a woman who had written a short book about Meditation and it had landed somehow in the hands of another woman who was in a prison in a foreign country. When she was released, she gave credit to much or her strength coming from having read that book – and the author somehow learned of that effect. She never knew and thought her book hadn’t really mattered.
I have also had many such experiences, having taught workshops for many years and hadn’t really known their impact. I still get emails from time-to-time sharing gratitude for words I don’t even remember saying.
It’s important to follow our intuitive leads to do something or say something or write something that we may think isn’t worth a hill of beans but may actually make a difference in someone’s life.
We have all had teachers, and community leaders – authors and public speakers who have spoken or written words that inspired us and changed us in ways we never say coming.
This has happened many times in my own life -sometimes famous people, sometimes movies or other art forms that have shifted my thinking – and my behavior in lasting ways.
I once dated a man who I celebrated Friday night suppers within the Jewish tradition of Shabbos. His parents were observant and after the prayers over wine and bread, his mother would say “Gott bless Oscar Shindler”. When I would ask who that was – it was sort of a non-answer…someone from the war.
You know the end of this story – when I saw the movie so powerfully made by Steven Spielberg, I realized that her life had been saved by Oscar Schindler and it had been indelibly imprinted on my memory and my heart.
Pay attention to the signs to do something that may seem odd or pay attention to something you hear or see from another. Notice how it changes you and pause for a moment in gratitude.
You Never know where you may now be headed as a result.
