January 2023 Topic: How am I leaving the world a better place than when I came into it?
By Sharon Loduca, Real Estate Professional in Ontario, Canada
My first action on just reading, “How am I leaving the world a better place…” was to immediately make a mental to-do list. But do you know what I do NOT need? Right! ANOTHER to-do list. It’s just that I’m a doer; an action-taker; a problem-solver. My nature, as soon as I see a question, is to first look for the outcome, the solution. I do tend to over-complicate some things… well, practically everything, actually. I just want everybody to be happy! 😊
The first best move I made in helping the world become a better place, was to evaluate the hamster wheel, get off, stop, and rest. In the process of resting, I made a shocking discovery: that the world went on just fine without me. Okay, I get that can be more humbling than ever intended. And maybe that’s just what was needed!
Realizing this, I was able to let go of stress and high self-expectations. I didn’t feel the pressure to say yes to everything. And this, my friends, freed me up. Freed me to find that place of rest on the inside, that place of peace, calmness, and acceptance. Now, these are gifts I can give. They have changed my world. They just might change someone else’s world. This is not about a tally count. It is about a state of being.
When you walk into a room and you look like you are the eye of the storm (guilty), people feel that. Some take it upon themselves. This life is short. This world is stressed to the max. I knew I could ‘do’ just a wee bit better. Surely in my own little world, I could leave a better mark. Not out of obligation, but out of desire.
Today, the first on my ‘list’ in leaving the world a better place is to show KINDNESS. Have a mindset of kindness. That kindness will look as different as the situation or person in front of me. However, the spirit of kindness doesn’t change. It could be a simple smile: at the drive-through; at a loonie in the hat of the person without a home; or, at the hurried driver who seems to need the road space ahead of you.
The second on my ‘list’ is TIME. I have the same number of hours in a day as the person in the nursing home. Except, I can be guilty of being too busy to care. Not that I would intentionally not care, but that the state of constant busyness can rob us of the state of awareness, which becomes sharpest, ironically, when we take ‘time’ to notice. Taking a coffee break in the park. Starting up small talk with the elder sitting alone. It could change their world. Today.
We already know what time does (and is expected to do) for our business. But from our kids to our partners, families, and friends – TIME is always appreciated and respected. Time invested kills neglect, isolation, and loneliness. Time shared allows them to believe in themselves and their dreams. It allows them to have hope; to emulate my behaviour. Time shared lets someone feel cared for and noticed.
Isolation and loneliness is now being addressed as the plague of our time, compounded on the other hand with stress, fatigue, and lack of time. Imagine this! If we could simply choose to tackle reclaiming our time, investing it kindly in others, however nominal, we could actually take the boots to isolation and loneliness and kick them into oblivion. My friends, I cannot think of a more promising way for me to leave this world a better place!
So, I guess, what I am really saying, is that to leave the world a better place, is to, from a place of quietness and renewed strength, give it the best of me. And of course, not ‘it’ but ‘them’. The world is made up entirely of individual people, all with their own set of needs and hopes. Giving the world the me who has weathered the storms of life, of wrong decisions, of grief and fatigue. The me who has allowed the rays of vision and hope to find their way through the cracks my world has created. Offering to the world, the one unique mosaic only I can give: myself. I offer ‘me’ through kindness and time… and always with a smile :). Everything else will organically surface from there.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
― Rumi
Giving of myself might look like having lunch with a lonely senior; it could be driving someone to a medical appointment; it could be visiting a neighbour with no family. It could be writing a short letter of encouragement, just once a week, but always to someone different. It could be a few groceries left at someone’s door. Maybe it’s leaving a good review, or complimenting someone on a job well done, or encouraging a young adult that they really do have what it takes to do life well.
I must add that to leave the world a better place, I also learned that what I choose NOT to ‘do’, is also really important. Choosing not to gossip. Making it a point to hold my conversations to a higher standard helped me to grow. Choosing not to take it personally when someone else is having a bad day. Choosing not to contribute to making someone else feel worse. Choosing to be the ray of sunshine – and not the eye of the storm. I think you can agree, this alone, leaves the world a better place.
If all I had to offer today was a smile, steeped from a place of loving kindness, then I can offer that smile, to one person at a time. A thousand times later, I will have impacted at least a thousand lives for the better. Even if it’s not a big game changer, it could be a big face changer, a big life changer, it could change the trajectory of someone’s life.
Let gratitude be your attitude. It will help your smile go the mile!! 😊. Take it for a test drive … time after time. Every day you will be making this world a better place.