This is the season when we focus on the needs of others. We look at our friends, our spouse, our co-workers, parents, neighbors and our children and think what do they need? What would make them the happiest? Our attention is mostly focused on the happiness of others.
We need to do this every day, 365 days a year.
We have an everyday obligation as human beings to look after the people in our lives, in our neighborhoods, and in our communities.
We have an everyday obligation as human beings to speak up when something’s not right. We have an everyday obligation to speak up when someone is being bullied. We have an everyday obligation to stand up for those whose voices have been silenced.
When you decide to do this, the first thing that you will feel is fear. It will feel as though you have been walking through your life seeing into darkness. A pleasant darkness, filled with familiar things. Things that you love. Things that make you happy and comfortable.
Then you open your eyes. What you see is oftentimes not pleasant. It makes you uncomfortable. It may make you feel scared and powerless. Keep your eyes open. See the elderly person paying with saved up change for their medication. Read the cards on the Wishes for Christmas trees and see the children who ask for food for Christmas. See the parents walking their children to school in the cold and the rain. See the people lined up at the food pantries.
See the unwashed people standing in line at the grocery store with canned goods that have flip tops because they have no way of opening the can or heating the food because they live in a tent or out in the open. See the young couple struggling to work two jobs and raise children without a reliable vehicle. See the person who has turned to self-medicating to not feel their lives.
Open your eyes. Once you see these things, they cannot be unseen. Even if you close your eyes and concentrate on your own beautiful darkness, you are aware of what is there in the light.
Instead of feeling scared or powerless, embrace that light and remember these words. This is OUR world. We can make it into the kind of place that we want. Take a deep breath and know that you have the power inside of yourself, as scared as you may be, to change this world for all of those people that you saw when your eyes were opened.
The happy, excited feeling that you get when you know that a gift you are giving is the perfect thing is the same feeling you will have every day when you do the right thing for those around you. A small act of kindness, whether it is given to a stranger or someone you know, changes who you are. You become stronger. You become happier. You become more brave. Once you open your eyes and let the bright light shine on your own beautiful darkness and see how much better your own world is, there is no turning back.
There can be a bright future ahead for all of us. Open your eyes.
Kindness matters!
Seeing opportunities in obligations
