The Power of One

“It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.” 

― Mahatma Gandhi

Can I really make a difference in the world?  Does what I do really matter?

The other day, I ran into a young man I’d worked with, having long talks about his future.   We became friends, and I was a cheerleader in his life.  I watched him refocus in high school, and graduating there.  I walked with him and held his hand as he thought about college, and enrolling.  

A few years later, I watched him receive his community college diploma, laughing with him as he posed for a family picture, diploma in hand.  His wife, and his sister, now both in college, stood proudly beside him.  

At the store, he shared a photo of his new baby, and his dream of a bright future, getting his bachelor’s degree, creating a bright future for him and his family.

“Thanks,” he said, quietly.  “Without you pushing me, encouraging me, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

A few weeks ago, I took a young man to a university, walking with him into the registrar’s office to schedule his classes, and get him ready for fall term.  We’d worked together last spring, to get him admitted, and transferring all his credits he’d earned for his associates degree, ready to start his junior year.  He’s been aiming for a bachelor’s degree for a long time, and was finally able to make the move into a four year university, one that has an excellent program in his area of interest.  

He’d been dragging his feet, not making the phone call to schedule his class registration, and all the other paperwork that needed to get done before he was really ready to begin classes.  The plan was for me to drive him there, make a day of it, and to celebrate his achievements.  But, he was dropping the ball, ignoring my increasingly less than subtle hints to take that drive, and move on with his life.  

I nudged, I prodded, and I waited.  Procrastination and fear took over, even a bit of resentment towards me, for being the quiet voice urging him forward, encouraging him to go live his dream.

Time was running out, and I spoke up, becoming direct, calling out for him to confront the elephant in the living room, and get moving here, moving ahead with his life.  We met, finally, to have that hard conversation.  We argued, we struggled, we finally got to the heart of his struggle, we each teared up, our guts churning.   

We named the elephant, and we argued some more.  He asked me where he thought I’d be in a few years, if he didn’t go to college, if he didn’t make that short trip to the university’s registrar that week, and be ready for fall term.

I got blunt, and painted a realistic picture.  

“If you don’t live your dream, if you don’t work towards achieving your goals, life will be hard, and life will be disappointing.  You will end up being disappointed in yourself.  Is that what you want?”

He admitted he really did want to go to college, but the old voices, the voices of childhood that had always whispered that he wasn’t good enough, that he wasn’t deserving of success, those were the voices speaking loudly in his head lately.

We refocused.  We didn’t dwell on “failure” and “I’m not good enough”.  Instead, we moved on, living in today.  And, looking towards the future, planning for it, taking real time steps to get where he wanted to go.

I grabbed the car keys, and his cold, sweaty hand, and walked him to my car.  Amazingly, at least to him, within an hour, we were at the registrar’s office in the university, organizing his schedule, planning for his graduation in two years.  He registered for classes, accepted his healthy array of scholarships, and sent in his student loan application.  

On the way out the door, we picked up his student body card and scheduled a time for him to meet his department head and double check his class schedule, to make sure he was on the right track with his major.  

Along the way, every college staff person was courteous, informative, and dedicated to getting him enrolled and off to a good start.  Each one of them took the time to take an interest in him, focus on his needs, and help him achieve his goals for the day, and for the next two years of his life.  

Each one of them, taking the time, being interested, investing in him.  He saw that in how they treated him, how they were living their day. The caring about one other person, one at a time, with all of their focus, all of their energies, all of their wisdom.  

And, so it begins, the new student and the teachers, the first lesson, building on the past, and aiming at the future.  

One person at a time.  

Neal Lemery, August, 2013

Gratitude

"Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all."  ~William Faulkner Gratitude is everywhere, if only I open my eyes. I choose to see either the dark, or the light. The gifts in life are abundant, but I need to choose to be aware of them. Yesterday, I was with a young man who was grateful for his own gifts to himself, the gifts of self actualization, of fortitude in moving forward, and in working to achieve a solid foundation for himself. He works hard on his education, and his healing. And, he is seeing himself for what he truly is, a loving, healthy, focused young man, heading into success full speed ahead. His “electricity of gratitude” is flowing, and the spark is catching. His work on self lit up the room, and also lit up the world. Neal Lemery 11/22/11

The Old Tree

As the tree grew, the new leaves in spring brought us hope. Its leafy branches in summer brought us its cool shade, a place to talk in the heat of the afternoon, as we sipped ice tea and lazed in the hot days. In the fall, its colorful leaves reminded us of the cycle of life and brought more beauty to our lives. When winter came, the bare limbs provided rough bark support for the flakes of sparkling snow on crisp days.

Over the years, the tree grew big and strong, and we took its presence in the yard for granted. Kids played noisily under its branches, and brought their friends. All too soon, they grew up and moved away. As the years passed, they’d come back, spouses and kids in tow, and children’s laughter was again heard under its spreading limbs.

As with us all, the tree grew old, losing a bit of its strength. One bitter day, a big storm cracked its trunk clear to the ground, and it was time to cut it down. Suddenly, that space in the yard no longer was filled with summer shade, or the maze of limbs sprinkled with the spring green of new leaves, or the orange and red fire of autumn.

Its thick trunk and fat limbs soon turned into a big pile of firewood, that warmed me as I split and stacked the seasoned hard wood. We were warmed again as the stove crackled and popped, during the depths of many a winter gale and early mornings, when my breath would turn white as I stood near the snowy flat top of the stump, my eye still seeing its tall, proud form.

I sat by the stump of the old tree one spring day, a new sapling in my hand, ready to plant. We needed a new tree there, in that corner of the yard, for the summer shade, and the colorful leaves in the fall, a place where kids could play and laugh. The yard seemed empty without a tree, in all its growing, in its presence in our lives.

Like many things in life, we didn’t really see the tree until it was gone, its silent place in our lives now missed, like the sound of children’s laughter after they’re grown.

I noticed the rings in the wood of the old tree stump. In counting the rings, I could tell its age, and remembered the events of our lives. And, in the counting, I saw that the big growth in the tree was in the spring and summer, when sun and warmth and water were plentiful. The thin, hard wood of the tree, its real strength, had come in the seeming deadness of the winter, when the storms and snows and freezing nights raged, when all seemed silent and lost.

As with new saplings and old wood, strength comes both in the flexibility of new growth, and the storm tested wood added in the height of a dark, cold winter.

8/29/2011