So, in an attempt to further better myself, I have started a new self-improvement project: Optimism. This started out as a patience exercise. I'm a bit of an impatient lady and I decided that I needed to learn how to temper that a little bit better. However, as I started to really put together a plan of attack, so-to-speak, I realized that a better way to approach the issue was to look at it in terms of optimism and pessimism vs patience and impatience. Both are very much similar, and optimism has such a nice ring to it.
As I was reviewing my last week and how to improve this week, I recalled an experience from my Freshman year of high school. It was toward the end of the school year and I was running for Sophomore Class President. I had spent a lot of time making some fantastic banners and posters and was really excited to be in the running. It was the final week of campaigns when something happened - and this day suddenly had the potential to be remembered forever as the most mortifying day of my life or one of the most grateful days of my life.
I got to my early bird class at 7am. We were dropped off from seminary in a big group up in the top parking lot of the school, right by our class, so I didn't see any of my posters before I went in. As I was sitting in class getting my notebook out, one of the other kids walked in and asked me if I'd seen the posters. Confused, I asked what they were talking about? It turned out that, during the night, someone had defaced all my posters and my large banner. I froze in my seat while some of my friends in class immediately left the room and took down the big banner. I fretted throughout the whole class period about having to go and face the whole campus at 8am and take down my posters.
The bell rang at 7:55 and I bolted from the room to go find my posters and hopefully get them down before everyone saw them. As I hurried around the campus, however, I realized that not one of my posters was still hanging. I found out later that my brother's two best friends (seniors, nonetheless) had taken down the posters when they arrived and effectively saved me from the humiliation of EVERYONE seeing them. Moreover, I never saw one poster. To this day, I still don't know (and I hope I NEVER know) what was written on them (and this is probably the only reason I was able to spend another 3 years with my head held high at Benicia High!).
We have the chance, potentially, each and every day to help change someone's day from a disaster to a grateful memory. It can be something as simple as a compliment, a positive attitude about an undesirable project at work or something as momentous as preventing public embarrassment or pain.
I hope to be an influence in the lives of all who know me as a positive example and trusted confidant. I want to be the one who takes down the defaced signs, never the one who has done the defacing.
2/02/2009
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I'll do you one better. Knowing the kind of person you ARE and have the potential to BECOME, how about you being the person who puts up the banners proclaiming the great qualities of someone else!
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