The Real Heroes are Not in Rio

Like most of the nation, I have been following the Olympics closely and cheering on the athletes.  The Olympics are truly awesome and inspiring but the real heroes I believe aren’t in Rio.  To me, the real heroes are those who tirelessly sacrifice and dedicate their time and talents to taking care of and helping others.  They are the healthcare professionals and care-givers, teachers, coaches and mentors, fire and police men and women, and military personnel.  They don’t seek fame or recognition of their own but instead seek to help others.   So although I do love the Olympics and applaud the athletes for their incredible accomplishments—I encourage us all to give thanks and praise to the true heroes that surround us every day.  And I’m grateful for the true heroes I get to work by and associate with on a daily basis!  Go USA!!

Be Builders!

Recently a teenage boy posted a drawing of a picture of a dragon on Instagram.  This drawing was less than perfect and well below what most of us would believe a teenage boy would be capable of drawing.  For example, the wings were different sizes and looked more like wings that belonged to a bumble bee rather than a dragon, the head was way too big for the skinny little body, and the legs were simply straight lines like a stick figure drawing.  The truth was, the drawing was very poor by any standard but obviously this teenage boy felt proud of it since he had posted it on Instagram for all of the world to see. 

Shortly after the post of this drawing, one of his friends couldn’t resist so he made a funny comment, poking some good hearted fun at the drawing.  Then another comment followed and another until many of this teenage boy’s Instagram “friends” were openly mocking him and ridiculing him for his ridiculous and pathetic drawing of a dragon.  Only after many comments had been made, some of which were mean-spirited and inappropriate did the teenage boy respond that the drawing was not done by him but was given to him by a close family friend who he had just visited in the hospital earlier that day and who was dying of cancer.

Seeing this unfold on Instagram I realized that at times in our lives, we probably all of have been on the two different sides of this story.  We all have probably been ridiculed and mocked by insensitive people who didn’t understand or see the whole picture.  And even worse, all of us probably at times have been the one who was insensitive and maybe even mean not knowing the whole story.  I was sure glad it never crossed my mind to join in on the fun by making some flippant comment and my guess is that the majority of his “friends”, if not all of them, would have never left most of the comments they had if they had known the whole story. 

Situations like this happen every day and I fear that more and more of us default to our instant emotions rather than being more careful and considerate of others.  To me, we are choosing more and more often to see people as objects and not as people.  The Internet and social media has made it easy to hide behind screens and unleash whatever first thought, criticism, or opinion comes to our mind.  We barrage and ridicule sometimes complete strangers. 

We can be better than this though.  Rarely do we know the whole story behind others actions or words.  Rather than being harsh or judgmental we should strive to be more aware, more sensitive, and more kind.  Let’s build rather than tear down.  There are enough people out there who destroy so let’s be builders!  In my mind this can only make us better people and ultimately better leaders. 

At the end of the day, all of us fall victim to our own incorrect assumptions.  We are wired to “fill in the blanks” and create a story.  Often however these stories are wrong and inaccurate and cause us to do or say or even feel unwise things.  Understanding this, we must think through our assumptions and the stories we tell ourselves.  If we want to strengthen our relationships and our ability to influence and motivate others, we must learn to remove assumptions as often as possible and see people as people. 

After all, we are all people with wants, needs, fears, and desires, each just as important as the next.  Learning to control our assumptions and stories and seeking to understand first before we comment or react will help us be much more successful in life. 

A lot of life is about our perspective, the assumptions we make, and the stories we tell ourselves.  Let’s control our stories and strive to always see people as people.  Let’s remember the teenage boy and his dragon picture—let’s remember others we may have hurt in the past not knowing the whole story.  As we strive to do this we will strengthen our relationships and have much better results in life.       

Hopes or Fears?

We really have two choices; to go after our hopes or listen to our fears.  Therefore, our life is about deciding whether our fears or our hopes matter most.  Sadly, too often in life we are governed by fear rather than hope.  And sometimes we don’t even realize it or are willing to admit it, but what we decide is not based on our goals, dreams, and aspirations but rather on our fears, concerns, and worries.  We allow these fears to lead us through life rather than taking charge of our own outcomes and destiny.  As you can imagine, living this way never leads us to the kind of life we’d like to have. 

Allowing fear to direct our life leads to so many negative things such as low satisfaction with life, low energy, a feeling of having little or no control, and even eventually remorse and regret.  We don’t want this to be us!  So, learning to make decisions based on hope and what we want most in life is how we ought to live.  This of course is not easy as so many of us have become accustomed to making decisions out of fear.  For this reason, changing our course will require deliberate effort, as well as some patience and time.  When we are faced with an important decision, or really any decision at all, we need to ask ourselves am I choosing this because it is truly what I hope for in life or is out of fear?  If we are able to begin doing this even once out of every 10 decisions it will give us a good starting place.  And putting forth this effort will eventually grow to 1 out of every 8 decisions then 1 out of 5 then hopefully, eventually 9 out of 10 decisions we are faced with.  As we begin this process, we can start to live out of hope! 

And believe me, I know that making decisions based on our hopes and dreams can, is, and will be scary at times.  What we need to remember during these moments of uncertainty is that we have only one life to live, so the risk is worth it.  Living a life where we never even tried to live our dreams, one where we realize nearly all of our decisions were governed by fears will only lead to serious disappointment.  The time is now to make our hopes matter more than our fears and the only way to do that is through our actions and choices.    

So what is controlling you and how are you living your life?  Eventually all of us decide whether our fears or hopes matter most to us.  I hope more of us will begin today to choose our hopes!