I love when celebrities use their fame and fortune for good! Whether it’s giving back to the communities they grew up in or live in today, providing opportunities to those less fortunate, or using their voice to support a cause that’s important to them, I have tons of respect for people who devote time to helping others.
By those standards, then, Bubba Watson is awesome!
He’s a great golfer, he’s really funny, and with all of the charitable work he does, it truly seems like it comes from his heart.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou
I think this is one of the most powerful ideas that each of us should embrace. Imagine going through your days thinking, “how can I use this opportunity to help someone else?” It doesn’t need to be some sort of grand gesture. Have you ever been in line at a coffee shop and when you went to pay for your drink, the cashier told you that the person in front of you bought it for you? I haven’t (!) but when I heard about the whole “Pay It Forward” philosophy, it made me so happy. You’re telling me that people are going out of there way just to help complete strangers? And they expect nothing in return?
There’s a cheesy, yet powerful, ad campaign that came out a few years ago highlighting this. These actions don’t have to be big, expensive, or life-changing, but they can all have a huge impact on another person’s day. Or life.
The thing to remind yourself is that everyone is fighting their own battle. Kevin Love (a professional basketball player) wrote an AMAZING piece on Mental Health last week called, “Everyone Is Going Through Something.” I liked it so much I’m working on a response piece of my own to discuss the same issue, but the gist of it is that no matter how much you might be struggling at any given moment, you’re not alone.
It’s so easy for us to get caught up in the world of our “Social Media Persona” and feel as though struggling isn’t normal. Any time something in our life makes us sad, we often feel ashamed or embarrassed about it. So instead of letting ourselves feel down, we hide it and hope that no one notices. Knowing that, I think we should approach each person we meet by giving them the benefit of the doubt that they might be going through something that’s really difficult at the moment.
I first shared the image above on my blog YEARS ago, and I feel exactly the same way about it today. No, I’m not saying that eating Cheetos and drinking beer is a bad thing. I literally did BOTH of those things yesterday, and I felt great! What I’m saying is that just because someone else seems to have everything together, it doesn’t mean that they do. A little gesture of kindness like holding the door for them or looking at them in the face and giving a genuine smile, could really go a long way.
To watch one example of how generosity can have a profound impact on someone you know, watch this video. There are so many details missing from this short clip. What we do know, at a quick glance, is that teammates came together to do something nice for a friend and it immediately brought him to tears. Moments like this should happen more often. Not the crying, the kindness.
We all know that friend who loves a particular drink from the place you go every morning. Once a month, surprise them with one! When it snows, if you’re out early in the morning before your neighbors, consider shoveling their driveway or cleaning the snow off of their car, too! I guarantee you’ll get a lot of weird looks at first, but after a while, this type of behavior really does start to build momentum. That piece of trash on the street that everyone walks by, pick it up and throw it away. Someone will notice, and it might motivate them to do something nice later on in the day.
At the gym, this kindness can come in really simple ways. When everyone finishes the workout, help other people put away their weight. When you grab a wipe to clean off your kettlebell, grab one for the person who worked out next to you. Before class, when you’re stretching with a few other people, ask someone how their day was… and actually listen. Sometimes, we don’t need people to DO anything for us… we just want to feel like people ACTUALLY care.
My challenge for you is to do ONE THING today that doesn’t benefit you in any way other than being a good person. Don’t do it for attention. Don’t do it to share with other people. Do it for you. Then see how it feels to brighten the day of someone else in the process. It might just make you feel really happy, too!
I’ve tried to start writing on my blog again at least once per week for the last…. eight or nine months. Every time I start a post, however, I get paralyzed. I wonder whether or not what I’m writing is good enough. Whether or not I use commas in the right places. (I don’t, by the way.) Whether or not people will like what I have to say.
You know what? When my writing was at it’s peak, and when the highest number of people were checking in every day, I didn’t care about any of that. I just wrote to write. I just started blogging because I had something to say. Something I wanted to share. Sometimes I learned. Or my favorite posts, somethings I wanted to learn from all of you!
The sense of community we started here many years ago has been lost, and I really miss it. So, for the seventeenth time…. THE BLOG IS BACK!!!
My good friend Broderick always told me that to get better at writing, you write. Every. Single. Day. No matter how little, just do it.
MOMENT OF AWESOMENESS is a segment on my page where I share things I’ve come across online. Typically, it’d be a video I saw on Facebook, and now Instagram, too. Since we woke up to snow here in Colorado this morning, and then my friend Erin shared this video with me, it seemed like a perfect time for me to post this one!
One of my favorite Snowboard segments I’ve watched was this one from JP Auclair (RIP) from the movie All.I.Can.
I’ve watched it at least once every winter since I saw it 6 years ago, and the video I saw today was inspired by this same epic run through the streets of Nelson, B.C. It was so great because I could tell in the first few seconds of the video that it was the same neighborhood!
Tom Wallisch crushes this video, entitled “Imagination”, as he follows in JP’s footsteps and makes the world his playground. I think my favorite scene is when he does a gate-stall on the fence, closes the gate, rides down a huge rail, then grabs the handle of the car for a lift, only to wall ride on the mural that was used in JP’s scene, which has had many more colorful birds added to it! When he does, the parents in the car comment on how it’s nice that something is finally being done with the mural. So great!
(Side note: does this remind anyone of Danny MacAskill’s Imaginate video?! Kids daydreaming of awesomeness, in mountain towns, while adults go on with their boring lives, none the wiser. Just sayin…)
Regardless, this video brought a smile to my face, and I hope it brings one to yours, too!
I hope you all have a great week. Here we go again!
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