Do you have a predominantly positive or negative effect on others?
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself this question? And I don’t mean how you think others perceive you. I mean, do you have a positive or negative influence on others?
Are you lifting people up or tearing them down? Are you helping them to recharge, or do you find yourself unconsciously needing to tear others down so that you can feel “better” or more “important”?
Sometimes, we are so focused on our own need to feel important, we stomp on other people to get there.
“Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important… They do not mean to do harm… They are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
T.S. Eliot
I’m reading Becoming a Person of Influence by John Maxwell. And it’s got me thinking a lot about how I treat others.
Am I encouraging? Do I treat them with love and respect?
Most of the time, parents are pretty good at doing this for their children. They believe in them when sometimes it seems no one else in the world does. They continue to love and encourage them even when they don’t behave like they deserve it.
What if we chose to do that for one another? What if we had a parent’s love for each other? Can you imagine how that would feel? What this world would be like?
John Maxwell is great at finding really good quotes, and this one by Henry Drummond, a nineteenth-century economist, is no exception:
“You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love.”
Henry Drummond
Find your spirit of love. Give it to others. Not to get anything in return, but just because. Because we know how good it feels when we are treated with love and respect. When we are encouraged. It charges our batteries and fills our cup!
Cheers,
Cami (Operations Catalyst, The Stacey Wedding Group)
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