Category: triumph

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What is Your Word Worth

On Christmas day I bet my grandson, Evan, $100 that he couldn’t throw his new basketball off their second story deck into his basketball hoop forty feet away. Mind you I’d already tried this twenty times without success, so I didn’t really think there was a strong chance that he’d be able to make the shot. But all sorts of things happen in this world.

After his third unsuccessful attempt he asked me how many more tries he could have. I told him he could keep going as long as he wanted.

On his next shot the ball whisked through the air headed right for the basketball hoop and swished through the net. As expected, he was overjoyed, both because he’d made a difficult shot and because he would be $100 richer.

We both whooped and screamed at his triumph. It was a great moment for each of us to savor.

Of course, you may be wondering what happened next.

Well, I don’t usually carry an extra $100 in cash in my wallet, so I couldn’t give it to him when he ran up to me and asked for his payout. He knew we’d be seeing each other the next day, so I told him he could have it then, which seemed to appease him.

Now, $100 is a pretty significant amount of money and there are those in the world who like to offer promises but have no intentions of delivering. They find ways to wiggle out of their agreements. Adults are particularly adept at this, especially when it comes to comes to children. They make a case that they didn’t really mean it or that they were just kidding, or they’d be happy to pay some lesser amount.

I did not want to be one of these adults.

I want my word to mean something, so that when I give it, others can rely on it, especially children. They are often told untruths, led on with the sole purpose of getting them to comply or they are given something less than promised. This breeds a deep lack of trust and erodes good foundations.

I knew that delivering on my promise was entirely up to me. No one could make me pay up and I could have chosen to convince myself that I was joking about my offer. But what would that teach him about me? What would it teach me about myself?

The next night our extended family was going out to dinner together. When everyone sat down, I asked Evan to come over to me. I took out five twenty-dollar bills and handed them to him. His face lit up. I could tell his nine-year-old brain was contemplating what he could do with his winnings.

I asked him if he thought that I would actually pay him the $100. He looked at me and responded with a ‘yes’. I wanted to satisfy my curiosity, so I asked him what he would have thought if I didn’t keep my word and pay him. He looked straight into my eyes and said, “I would have thought that you don’t tell the truth.”

And there it was. Exactly what I thought. He would have lumped me in with all those who lie to him or those who cannot be trusted.

Deep inside me, I knew without hesitation that this was a defining moment for us. He may not always believe me, but for right now, our foundation is strong, and our eyes can see each other’s truth.

To me, $100 is a small price to pay for his belief in me.

What is your word worth to you?

Does it represent who you are as a person in this world? Can you be counted on to deliver what you promise? Is it important that you live up to your own truth?

My hope is that I can always answer these questions from a place of inner conviction, knowing I have a strong foundation.

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Removing Obstacles

Here’s a bold statement.

Everything I experience in my life means something and there is always a message there for me. I firmly believe this is true for me and I also believe it is true for you.

Here’s how it comes about. I’ll take ‘obstacles’ as my example.

I find that sometimes if I’m not feeling well, I don’t always want to get better right away, because then I won’t hear the message. I’ve discovered there is value in being patient, waiting, and listening. Then when I hear or feel something, it’s wise for me to encourage it to surface and come fully to my attention.

At one time in my life, I didn’t feel it was safe to breathe. Partly this was due to COVID and its respiratory implications, but not solely. There were other reasons why I was concerned about breathing. I felt like I needed a filter, something that would prevent irritants and pollutants from entering into me.

Although initially I was safety conscious about external things getting through my defenses, I soon realized that the internal things within me could be every bit as harmful. I also sensed that many things I feared were not real, they only felt real. The distinction however escaped me.

As I thought more about this, some specific fears surfaced. One of these was the fear of rejection. The belief that others would not be interested in anything I had to say, nor would they read what I had written. I felt strongly motivated to prevent this from happening, and recognized two detrimental aspects were involved.

I felt I was a prisoner because I thought I needed others attention. When this is your frame of reference, you never feel safe. A companion realization was that I had no control over what others thought, said, or did. No matter how attractive, insightful, or funny a thing was that I created, it might not catch others attention.

It’s easy to see how this is a recipe for an internal disaster. How is it that I sense rejection without knowing if it’s even present? This is what fear does to me though. It pushes me toward extremes and doesn’t want me to sit back or pause or consider. Fear likes it when I’m reactive.

Taking even one moment away from fear and asking the question, why do I need others to accept me or what I say or write? When I give myself this opportunity, there is space to breathe and embrace new directions. I can give myself a moment to ask, why is what I am doing important to me? What am I really after?

Because I paused, my answer is clear to me. I want to live from a heart of joy. One of the critically important steps for me to realize is that having to work my way through the obstacle of fear of rejection is a giant step along my path.

Without releasing this fear there would be no way forward. I see that it sat in my way, not as an obstacle, but as a signpost, guiding me to a better destination.

In this way my fear of rejection was an integral part of my path to living a joy-filled, joy-full life. And it can be for you too. You may need to substitute your own obstacle in place of my fear of rejection, but each and every obstacle is guiding us to our ultimate aim(s) in life.

Rather than resisting or turning back, when you meet your next obstacle, recognize that you have a choice. You can choose to see them as signposts telling you that they are not the way forward. You can shift and find what does work for you, what feels ‘right’ to you and what brings you joy or whatever you desire to reveal in your life.