Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.
For this post, I\’ll respond to one of the blog prompts for WordPress. The challenge is to share a story about someone who had a positive impact on my life.
This could be a very easy topic for me. I had a happy childhood with loving parents. I had a large family. I\’ve had close knit friends my entire life, my wife\’s family accepted me in with open arms. I could say a thousand reasons why I\’m grateful for all of them, but I don\’t think you the reader would get any value out of that. Instead, I want to make sure that I talk about something that I can pass on to put some positivity in your life like it was put in mine.
I know just the story to tell…
This person is no longer in my life but I am grateful for the impact they had on shaping who I am now. To understand the importance of the positive effect they had on my life, you need to understand two things.
First, positivity can take many forms. Some times tough love is what\’s required to make a positive change.
Second, I used to be extremely lazy. Like, a lot lazier than I am now. I had a horrible work ethic. I frequently sought out excuses that would absolve me of blame in situations, even when it would have been less effort just to do something the right way or fix it.
I won\’t get into the weeds with all the details, but this person eventually confronted me intensely. It was an intervention of sorts, birthed out of prolonged frustration. Their words were not kind. There was no sugar coating. It was brutal honesty and it cut to the bone.
It was also exactly the verbal slap I needed to wake up. I realized that I was wasting my life away doing the bare minimum, being unreliable, unaccountable, and basically useless if the chips were ever down. That wasn\’t me but that was who I had let myself become. I don\’t know what perfect cocktail of events in my past shaped me into that but if the Seven Deadly Sins really were demons, I had let myself be possessed by sloth.
If this person hadn\’t cared enough to take the time and effort to go off on me like that, I don\’t know that I ever would have got my act together.
The reason I wanted to share this with you is because we all get tired, physically and emotionally. We get hurt and we breakdown and sometimes we just don\’t have the strength to go on. Sometimes we may feel wrongfully accused or like everything is unfair.
It\’s okay to rest. It\’s okay to take a break when you need it. But it\’s easy to let that little emotional power nap turn into an emotional coma that you never wake up from. Remember that you are so awesome! You have so many things that we all need you to do! Things only you can do! Don\’t let the troubles and worries of this pointless, deluded, rat-race we call modern life be the thing that prevents you from being your best self. When you are feeling down or jaded rise above it. If you can\’t, that\’s okay. Make a tactical retreat to regain your strength and balance, and then come back with a fire in your heart!
Don\’t let what doesn\’t matter get in the way of what does.