Last week I was having an average day. There was nothing wrong with it, but there was nothing great either. It was election day, so I got to read a bunch of tweets about how I’m a terrible American. I didn’t vote. I hate listening to all the political garbage that is out there. Honestly I forgot it was election day and didn’t know anything about the candidates. Rather than be an uninformed voter, I decided to just sit this one out.
But there was something that changed my day. As I was going about my average afternoon, I received an encouraging text. It was completely unexpected and not part of a conversation I was already having with this person. I felt pretty awesome after reading that text. It elevated my day to a good day status. It is crazy to think just a few simple words could do that. In his book Love Does, Bob Goff says, “Words people say to us not only have shelf life but have the ability to shape life.” That is a really cool thought. The words we say can stick with people and change things about their life.
There probably isn’t a person who doesn’t like being encouraged. If they do exist, I’d like to meet them because I’d probably make them very happy. As much as I like being encouraged, I am not so good at returning the favor. And by not so good, I mean pretty bad. If encouraging people was a class, I’d barely get a D-, terrible but just enough to pass. A couple of weeks ago when I said something encouraging to someone they asked me why I said it. That’s a pretty good sign that you don’t say encouraging things enough. Encouraging other people is not something that comes naturally for me. That’s probably not really good since I am a leader in so many things.
I’ve tried to work on being more encouraging and I think I have made some progress. It is something I’ll continue to work at, and one day maybe I’ll be good at it. I guess I’ll try working on it right now.
You read this post. I appreciate you doing that. You are pretty awesome.
until next time…