An Average Man

I was twenty years old and working as a night clerk at a hotel in South Lake Tahoe, CA right on the state line. The hotel had overbooked by sixty rooms which meant that as people arrived in from all over the world that night I would have to be the one to tell them that the room they booked months ago was re-sold to someone else on accident. As people started to pile into the lobby that night checking in we reached the critical point at which I would have to start turning people away. Several people became so angry they were instigating madness in the crowd. I was by myself and starting to get very nervous as people were getting violently angry. An old man stepped forward to the counter. He placed his hands across mine and softly said, "This too shall pass my son. This too shall pass." He turned to the crowd and asked everyone to leave the building immediately. He took over the crowd and helped come up with a plan to get them rooms at another location. I never met this person before in my life. I never got his name that night. I have never seen him again. However he had a profound affect on my life. That moment was one of the most traumatic and emotionally stressful nights of my life. This person was a blessing to my life. I will remember that moment when all of my turns come up to save others in need.

I hope there is a moment in your life that you realize that you really matter to those around you. I am not talking about every moment you happen to be in the same room with another person, but many moments that you are in the presence of others they are being affected by you. You are also being affected by them.

Why am I writing this? Why not? I am an average man. I have the ability to affect your life in some way by you reading this. I hope I affect you in a positive way that will give something to you as a small gift that you can pass on to others.

The guidelines I follow are very basic. Don't waste your life. Every interaction or decision that you make may and usually does affect those around you. The words that you use, the actions that you take or don't take, the effort to be positive in a world of negative determines the underlying value of your life. Will you add value or detract value from the lives of those around you? The old saying that it is not what happens to you but how you react to what happens to you is a truth few completely embrace. Your power is derived by thoughtful reaction to what happens. Good things and bad things happen all of the time in our lives and we have the power to control our reactions. We can take a good thing and make it a bad thing if we choose to sabotage it just as easily we can take a bad thing and turn it into a good thing to enhance our lives in some way.

There are thousands of examples of average people adding value to the lives around them. Think for just a few moments of some of the best moments in your life. Who is with you during those moments? Some of my fondest memories are about family members that were very special to me that no-one will ever hear about nor will they ever be famous. Some of these family members did extraordinary things for others including self-sacrifice to enhance their family's lives. Some things that we do might be small gestures, almost insignificant to us but unbelievable miracles to others around us.

You have an amazing ability as an average person to touch the lives of everyone you come into contact with. Make an effort for one day to notice the details in one day of your life. Look closely at the people that you meet, speak with, or briefly come into contact with. Think about things you could have said or done to impact the people during that day in a positive way.

Here is a strange comment I heard in a recent comic performance that struck me in a terrible way: "half of the earth is dying of starvation and the other half of the earth is trying to lose weight". In your own life you have more than enough time, money, energy, and resources to affect many other lives right now. You are not the other half of the earth that needs our help. If you are you wouldn't be reading this.

Take a quick journey with me through my own life. This will not be long. It will not be based on complicated quadrants about human behavior or be based on doctoral thesis. This will be about human inspiration. And inspiration is not that hard. You either care or you don't. If you care you must take action. If you aren't willing to take action then you really don't care that much.

I know you care and to keep your attention I kept this material short.

Let me give you a short scenario. I am at work. My boss tells me he thinks I am an idiot because the report I wrote was simply not well researched and made him look horrible to his boss. He tells me I had better get better or start looking for another job. I go into my office and tell my assistant that I need better information on that topic now or they'll be looking for a new job soon. I leave the office and get on the subway. My thoughts are racing as I need my job. My wife and I just upgraded our house to a bigger and better style and I can't afford to start over at a new job working my way up. Someone bumps me and I tell that person if they bump me again I will rip their head off. As I come to my stop I am thinking of the idiot who just bumped me as I push my way past five people to get off at my stop (bumping all five people as I push through loudly grumbling). I walk up the stairs and someone is going slow in front of me. I tell them to get the hell out of the way if they can't walk as fast as the rest and I push my way past them. I stop by the local sandwich shop as I told my wife I would get dinner on the way home. As I am standing in line it takes forever as an overweight woman takes her time ordering several items. I tell her to hurry up and that she doesn't need all that food, she'll be just fine without it. I go home, first thing I do when I get home is tell my two kids to get in the living room and clean up the crap they threw everywhere. I tell them what a burden they are to us and that they are the reason we have nothing great in my life anymore. I kiss my wife and asked if she has paid the electric bill yet. She tells me no she will remember to do it tomorrow. I tell her I can never trust her to do simple things. Nothing gets done unless I do it myself. I just hope we make it through the night with electricity.

The sad thing is that this kind of every day example is in practice in a large majority of the civilized world. One person affects another which in turn affects a countless number of other people.

An old man affected my life more than 15 years ago and that one powerful moment will travel around the world to be heard by thousands more. You do have an affect whether you understand it or not.

The legacy of your life is being written right now by you in moment by moment events. What will the story of your life say about you?

Let's start with the most important thing you can affect while you are alive. Your family. These are the people that make up "your life". Let me begin by saying we need to leave all judgments or prior ill feelings behind us. It does not matter how we feel about our parents. What does matter is how we treat them, what we say to them, what we will do for them. This is not about us. It is completely about affecting their lives in a positive and productive way. We have the opportunity to add something of value to them. Whether they accept it or not is irrelevant.

Some of you reading this will have great relationships with their parents, some will have horrible relationships, some still will have non-existent relationships or terminated relationships based on abuse. Keep in mind that adding something of value to someone's life is not about debate or conflict or being right or wrong. Frankly when I am involved in saying or doing things for others there is no direct benefit involved other than the feeling of doing good for others. If we do something for someone and we don't get the desired response we must leave our ego's behind. If you try to do things to get something from other's you are wasting your life.

My greatest gift is in helping others feel the reward of simply helping others. Even if your parents have not been great parents it is no excuse for you to be a horrible parent, a horrible child, or a horrible spouse or friend to others. You reach a point in your own life where you must take responsibility for your own choices and your own learning. As an adult you have the opportunity to help your parents feel good about themselves, learn how to feel a deeper love, learn to be close with you, feel the reward of spending time with you and your children, feel the reward of their good stewardship, feel the reward from being a good lifelong teacher and protector, etc. There are so many ways to enhance your parents life no matter what circumstances your relationship or non-relationship, you are connected and have an obligation to use your power of influence for adding value to those around you. Your life is so empty until you feel the reward of helping others.

How large is your imagination? Get creative because your parents are in need of encouragement, validation, love, acceptance, belief, etc. Guess what... they are just like you. You are just like them and everyone else on the planet.

Probably one of the biggest influences on our lives are our spouses. These are the people that agreed to be with us forever no matter what - fat, skinny, happy, sad, sick, healthy, poor, rich, anything. That's a pretty tall order to fill for most of us. How many of us take our vows that seriously? Do you think of your vows every single day you are married? How about every single day after twenty years of marriage? This one person is either your biggest supporter or your biggest critic. What they need is for you to be their biggest supporter. No one needs a critic. We usually are our own worst critics. Your spouse needs you to support them emotionally, physically, mentally, completely. They need you to re-assure them they are attractive, funny, smart, interesting, creative, loving, and generally wonderful. We do this with our words, actions, and body language. What we say or don't say does matter. I remember just recently looking at my wife and making a mental note that she looked great in the dress she was wearing. Later that evening she mentioned I had not even noticed her wearing the new dress. I explained to her that earlier I had noticed and thought to myself how great she looked. She absolutely did not believe me and it even made her feel less attractive because she thought I was just telling her what she wanted to hear. Saying the words does matter. Telling your spouse you love them means something. Telling your spouse you notice things matters. Noticing the details is important to making a meaningful relationship. This person needs to know that you notice them, you think they are attractive, you are interested in them. As an example the only reason my wife wears make-up is to look good for me. If I don't notice it affects her self-esteem. I want my wife to feel loved, appreciated, important to me. The way I can do this is by making a conscious effort to notice details every day such as makeup, new clothes, etc. I work hard on including her in all of my interests, talking to her about my thoughts, opinions, politics, religion, etc. I tell her all of the time that I want us to grow old "together" finding interesting things to do, learning new languages, traveling as partners. One of the easiest ways I can affect her is by being honest with her about my feelings. When I say my feelings I am not talking about criticisms. I try to present my feelings in a way that has no conflict. I ask her for her opinions and concerns. I am interested in her as an intelligent person which in turn shows her I listen and pay attention to the details. I think about all of the things on a daily or weekly basis I can do to enhance her life in a way that is valuable. I am human. I am flawed. I work hard in making up for my inadequacies when I detract value from her life such as making criticisms. I make a genuine effort to add as much value to her life as I can imagine. It is my reward to enjoy my wife's happiness. I feel as though it is God's grace that he gave us the power to influence each other's lives in such simple but profound ways.

Please read carefully from this point on. You are the world to your child. I don't mean that you are really important to them although I'm sure that you are. I mean that everything that the world represents is based on your influence. From the beginning of your child's life there are words. The words and sounds represent the world. These are your actions and behaviors. These actions and "how" you act represent how we are supposed to relate to the world. What we teach our children through words, actions, and behaviors become this child's world.

If children are our future, how are we nurturing this future to save ourselves from destruction?