If you want to be Smart, Wealthy Rich, Approach life with passion, joy, and Genuine Curiosity. Find a life’s work that has heart and is a Brain Based Business. Even then, don’t let work be a Consuming Experience. Remember, It’s Not about Your Stuff. It’s about the people you care about.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find your strategy, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
trust.
My father used to say, “Trust nobody.”
I would answer, “Daddy, that would mean I couldn’t trust you.”
His reply would be. “Yes, I know.”
I knew that wasn’t true. Still I could trust him, and I could trust what he said too.
The irony of the conversation of my dad with his little girl is that trust isn’t found in words. Trust is a way of living. It’s written in who we are.
My father was right. He taught me that no one can tell of trust. One has to live it, give it, and aspire to be trustworthy. Trust is character.
I hear us talking about trust. I heard you say it just this week. trust We talk about who we trust, whether we can trust, the need for transparency to trust each other.
When the world got crowded did our trust get crowded out of it?
Every small child is trustworthy. I trust in humanity.
Trust. I have plenty.
I have plenty because without it . . .
I can’t smile or write. I can’t be brave or vulnerable.
Take my trust. Take all you need.
Because without it . . . I can’t breathe.
How do you find the trust you need?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
Related
Change the World: Truth and Humility
Personal Identity: What Is Humility?
How could I not enjoy getting to work in the morning? Each day when I open the doors to this little blog, I find wonderful minds here to share conversation and coffee. Listen in to one conversation that happen on a day I was traveling, a short two weeks ago.
We talked about the in-between times, the life that happens that is not a big event. Juggling Frogs, offered congratulations on my son’s graduation. Karin H. revealed the news of a quadruple birthday party. Lodewijkvdb pointed with wonder at how human beings have the power to relive the past in our minds. Robert said, ” the best ideas come from, the ones that have nothing to do with work, but with life.” Gary returned to add that we often forget to enjoy the part in between big events. zakman pointed out that with understanding the inbetweens of hard times, we might also find solace. Mike observed that we spend time at big events talking about the inbetweens. GP offered one of her timely quotes that leave me thinking for days
My mind is filled up every morning with such learning. Who else gets to spend coffee with such incredible people every mroning? Even more incredible I am totally able to take my morning coffee friends with me wherever I go.
Thank you all for the life’s breath you give me every morning.
What morning rituals are a part of your blog?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
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How to Code Accessible Links–Part 1
How to Code Accessible Links–Part 2
How to Code Accessible Links–Part 3
Jon Swanson and I met not long ago. It was shortly after I had started reading his blog. We haven’t talked on the phone. We’ve merely passed messages like two kids in school. Still I think that because we share a certain mutual friend and because I’ve read what he wrote I know him some what.
I wasn’t surprised when an email with Jon’s post for the Change the World series. I share it now with you.
People tell me all the time that they want to make their lives matter, that they want to do something significant, that they want to change the world.
All the time? Isn’t that an exaggeration?
Not really. I’m a dad and a husband and a friend and a pastor and a listener. Most of my conversations somehow involve people who aren’t happy with something about their situation, or something about their life or something about their job or something about the furniture or …..
But you said that people were wanting to change the world. You are talking about complaining, aren’t you?
Not really. I have this funny notion that people are connected to each other, that what happens to one person can change someone else.
Yeah, that’s the “butterfly wing” effect, right? A small action somewhere changes something in the other part of the universe. That’s so cliche.
I know. It’s silly. Of course, if I started describing the yellow swallowtail I see in the backyard right now, while sitting in the old rocking chair that my grandfather sat in, and Susan Reynolds thought about it and decided to paint that butterfly, and then put the cards on her website, where Becky McCray ordered some to send a thank you to Jim Long for painting pictures with his words and images, which made Jim particularly motivated in his camera work so that he shot a visual meditation on yellow swallowtails which was edited into the closing credits sequence at the end of the network news someday so that 2-3 million people watching were less cranky about the world when they sat down for supper and encouraged their kids instead of scolding them so that they did well on their tests the next day and school performance, just for a day, improved–would that be cliche?
Well yes. But it would be a good way to show some link love. And what the world needs now is love, link love.
That’s pretty cliche, too.
I know.
Here’s the point. To talk about deciding to change the world ignores the fact that we already are. Our existence, our interactions, our writing, our time, our love, our hate–all of these things are shaping the world in small ways. The question is not whether you are ready to change your world. The question is whether you like the way you are already changing it. And whether you are willing to be part of helping other people change the world. too.
Even if the action is as simple as writing a post.
Like this.
—Jon Swanson
_______
Thanks, Jon, for showing us how we are changing the world in the “ittle ways” that count.
We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
unconditional love.
Unconditional love is like a package that comes without strings. I arrives without asking, delivered on a breeze. No invoice is ever written. No charge is ever made. It’s so softly sent that it can go unnoticed as if it didn’t exist.
Unconditional love seeks no reward, no response, no glory for its gift. It sees the reality of a whole human as he or she lives. The dirty socks on the floor and the ringed milk glass in the sink don’t change the astounding feeling of love for the heart who has done these small worldly things.
It’s the opposite of indifference. Indifference has no soul.
It’s surrender to another the way one surrenders to music or art.
Unconditional love is patient, brave, and relentlessly disarmed.
I’ve seen it. I know.
Unconditional love begins when we stop to understand that I hurt me when I hurt you.
It’s believing that inside the happiness of others is where we will find our own.
What does it take to let go?
Richard was the boy in my first grade class who never had quite enough for lunch. He made his way to school alone along the back path on foot. He told stories no one believed, and he always wore the same wrinkled and stained shirt. Unless they had reason, the other kids left him alone.
Every morning as writing practice, I wrote a sentence starter on the board. The kids would copy it down. Then they’d finish the sentence with their own words and continue writing on. The language they wrote in, a special one called First Gradian, was one only they could decode, but the practice of putting a message in text was an important. So after they wrote, I asked each child to read his or her missive aloud.
On this morning, the sentence starter was What I really want is . . .
It was a big class for a first grade, and so there were many answers. One by one, the children came up to read their papers. They asked for a bike, a trip to the circus, a video game, the latest doll — all were innocent dreams of children with no worries. All except one.
Richard’s paper showed only more two words longer than those I had written down. He stood by my desk turned toward the group and read.
What I want is . . . a hug.
A child in the front came up and gave him one. Then came another. Soon a room of first graders was hugging each other.
Richard was brave and vulnerable. He knew what he needed, and he asked.
We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss