Make a difference
Why settle for a good life when you can have great! We give up on dreams because things aren’t so bad and life is ok. Many of us settle for the day to day survival and fall into the routine of getting up and going to work, paying the bills, buying the groceries, cleaning the house and taking the kids to school, but when you're merely surviving, you aren't really living and you aren't making a difference in the lives of those who need it. If each one of us pushed ourselves a little further and gave a little more, then this world would be a better place.
We say we want to help and do more, but we are too busy with our lives and our families. We’ll volunteer when the kids are older or we’ll donate more next year when the car is paid off. Stop waiting and do a little more now. Your giving doesn’t have to be monetary; it can be your time and you can do it with your kids and give them a valuable lesson in giving. Stop watching television for one hour a day or stop wandering the malls buying more things you don’t need and increase how you give by just a little bit. Even if you touch only one person and make one person’s life a little better, it will have a ripple effect. Like a pebble cast in a pond, the ripples roll out and touch the surroundings. Cast your pebble forward and touch those around you.
Great things can be accomplished when people come together and help one another. Why does it take a disaster for so many of us to wake up and step up? People will often ask “if there is a God, how can He allow terrible things to happen?” If there is a God, maybe He or She is trying to wake us all up. Maybe He is trying to tell us that in order to achieve more as the human species, we have to come together and help one another, not only in times of disaster. Maybe He’s showing us what we can accomplish and hoping we will use that in all parts of our lives. Even with no religious beliefs, you can see what we can accomplish in the face of disaster and should know that we, the human race, can do so much more than we are. It is not until we push ourselves to the limits that we know how much we can do. Limits exist only in our mind.
There are no obstacles that can’t be overcome. Take a lesson from Randy Pausch. Even in your dying days, you can choose to be sad and miserable or you can have a profound effect on people. Randy Pausch gave a speech that will resonate with people for a very long time and he did this after being given a fatal diagnosis. He talks about dreams, enabling the dreams of others and he talks about lessons learned. He has a perspective most of us won’t see for years to come and has given us a sneak peak at the things we might want to change now, before it’s too late. If you haven’t seen it, here’s a link to his “Last Lecture” given at Carnegie Mellon. This is an inspiring piece. It is over an hour, but I encourage you to set aside the time and watch the whole lecture. It has touched the lives of many.
So you can go back to your routine and exist or you can go forward, live your dreams and make a difference. How will you spend your time and when your time comes, will you have made a difference in the world?
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