Confidence and Pride
Dear Girlfriends,
I'm interested in what you did in your twenties and thirties.
How many of you were PTA moms who could organize and run the Halloween carnival better than P.T. Barnum himself? Or were PTA officers, running the board as smoothly as that of any Fortune 500 company?
How many of you were office managers? Delegating, motivating, and negotiating your way through the day better than the most experienced politician on Capitol Hill?
How many of you were sales reps? Representing your company's products or services and "fixing problems" as smoothly as a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat?
Do you remember those days when you commanded a room? When you were proud of the service you delivered to your children; your employer; your customer? Or have you forgotten the incredible contributions you made with confidence and pride?
With confidence and pride, a woman named Pearl knocked on my front door. I was a teen-age mom who had just moved away from my family and the only home I'd ever known to a suburb of Dallas. Since I had no family to support me, Ms. Pearl, about 50 years old at the time, waltzed into my home (after a bit of sleuthing on my part to determine if this woman was for real) and shared her wisdom with me and her lap with Shauna. This woman literally saved my sanity (and probably Shauna's life - I hadn't a clue what I was doing). When I asked her a couple of years later how I could ever repay her, she said, "Sometime in your future, you will come across a mother who needs you. Make sure you share with her what you've learned and be available."
Pearl didn't invest 20 hours a week in her mother/child development course; she volunteered her mothering and grandmothering services to Shauna and me for about two hours a week. For 120 luxurious minutes she took Shauna or sat with her in our home, giving me the only two-hour break this very young, very poor, very inexperienced mom would get all week.
Here's one of only about a hundred things I learned from watching Ms. Pearl: She recognized a need and she took action; she wasn't timid. She had caught her second wind and realized that her second-half contribution to society would be one mother and one baby at a time. Don't think this is life-changing? It was to me.
Whether you volunteer your managerial services to a non-profit, share your gifts of event planning with your church, or lend a lap to neighbor's child - catch your second wind. People need you. Your second wind will fuel you with confidence and pride when you step out and realize you really are making a difference.
A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed .Henrik Ibsen
Saying less and doing more,
Ellen
Posted by Ellen on July 3, 2007 10:23 AM
| Category: Catching My Second Wind
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