Random Acts of Kindness – Creating a Mystery
The Dalai Lama said, “Right from the moment of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents, and then later on in our life, when we are oppressed by sickness and become old we are again dependent on the kindness of others. Since at the beginning and the end of our lives we are so dependent on other’s kindness, how can it be that in the middle we neglect kindness toward others?”
Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee, and I’m excited for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. Power serves you best when you know how to use it.
Last week I told a story about floating down the San Juan river and how the people and experiences in our lives become touchstones of meaning and milestones for us. This week we’ll talk about why kindness is more important than ever and how we create our own mystery stories.
In the timeline of the history of the world, our day is unlike any other. The speed at which we communicate and transact business is instantaneous compared with past forms of communication that ranged from only being unable to communicate with someone that was directly in front of you, to currier by horse or pigeon which could take weeks or months depending upon how far away the communication was being sent, to telegraphs, to home phones, sitting in front of the large home radio, television, or computer and eventually the internet and the crazy small devices that we can carry with us everywhere now. This of course, leaves out the eras taken to develop symbols and alphabets in the first place to be able to communicate outside of pictographs and petroglyphs. It’s been a long road. We are so connected now, with so many people, that the common person with a cell phone has a monumental voice to tell their stories to the entire on-line world with a reach completely unprecedented. Social media has given rise to the voice of the masses – to anyone who wants to speak. There is no more silence, no more getting permission, no more waiting for the powers-that-be to approve what the masses know. Today with a cell phone and a computer you are your own publisher, your own promoter. You can be connected to almost anyone, almost anywhere, even someone on the other side of the world. So, here’s the irony: this is also the time the Huffington Post called, “The Age of Loneliness.” There are lots of reports and articles written on this subject, how we don’t like to admit we’re lonely because it’s a stigma associated with losers and loners, how the local community once revered and honored as a place where people knew and supported one another has become instead often a place where everyone is disconnected because they are so busy moving fast, or tapping in virtually to people they will never see. There are numerous reasons our society has become disconnected, all while appearing to be more connected than ever, but without this sense of community and personal connectedness, we are often left feeling lonely and lost. Our stories have more moments where we stand in a crowd and feel completely alone. I have felt this more times than I have tracked.
The other day I was listening to a podcast and the speaker pointed out research that showed that when we leave our cell phones on the table during lunch or during a conversation, that people will not delve into deep discussions. Conversation stays on a surface level because all participants know that they can be interrupted at any time, and sharing on deep personal levels is a vulnerable and personal space that requires one’s full attention. This is just one example of the many, many ways that...
