I wrote this blog for my business account. But unfortunately it wasn't suitable. So I decided to post it myself - because it has a message that I think is worth sharing. Enjoy!
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A few months ago a teacher friend of mine was trying to teach her kids
why it’s still important to write letters when we have email – a challenging
task. She told them about the amazing
TED talk she watched and how a letter-writer inspired the whole of New York
to start making a difference. It started with one hand-written letter and
spread to an epidemic of good feeling and inspiration.
As she describes in her blog post, small ideas can blossom
into great things, and this one did. The next day one of her pupils brought
in a hand-written note, and hid it somewhere on the school property. It said:
“To a lovely person
You are great. There is nothing you can’t do
if you put your mind to it.
Be brave.
Love from ?”
The repercussions of this small action were far-reaching. Not only did
it bring tears to the eyes of the teacher who was still struggling with the
death of her sister for several years, it inspired several other members of her
class to start doing the same thing. The outpouring of love and healing was
slow and steady and remarkable.
It made me realise that in our busy, hurried lives, we touch so many
people – each of whom has their own challenges, emotions and concerns. When we
travel for business, the number of people we interact with swells above our
normal daily number, and we don’t even ‘see’ most of them.
So this year, I’m planning to pay more attention to the people who help
make my business trips a bit easier.
- I’m going to say thank you to the person who is scanning my bags at the airport. After, they are actually doing their job to make me safer.
- I’m going to smile at the person who checks my passport. I can’t imagine that they have many people who feel positively towards them normally.
- I’m going to look a cleaner in the eye, when they’re picking litter up off the floor of a train, plane, or station platform and thank them for the job they’re doing.
- I’m going to buy a cup of coffee for the person in the line behind me at a café, just to make their day. And the clincher...
- I’m going to leave a random note, for a stranger, on my morning commuter train. Who knows, maybe I’ll make someone’s day, like the New York letter-writer, or my friend’s school pupils. However it pans out (and the chances are that I will never know what really happens) I believe that the world deserves a chance to get off to a good start in 2013, and I’m going to do what I can to help make that happen.
What will you do to make other people’s lives better in 2013? I challenge you to find a way to make someone smile today.
