“Many of the cruel things in life spring from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts; we are true only to our ideas of one another.”
– Oswald Chambers, in his daily devotional, My Utmost For His Highest
“Most things in life are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. Most things just are.”
– Dr. Tom Graf
As parents, it’s too easy to focus on our idea of what we’d like our kids to be. As spouses, we get wrapped up in the idea of what we imagine our partner could be. As leaders, we get derailed when our employees don’t live up to the idea of what we’d expect them to be. As employees, we get defeated when our leaders act or decide in a manner that conflicts with our idea of what we’d like to see.
Difference makers realize that our ideas are — well, that they’re ideas. Not facts. Not reality.
Stripping away the myth from the man — seeing him as he really is — is one way to make a difference in his life. Divorcing yourself from the imagery of the ideal woman — and seeing her as her own person — is one way to make a difference in her life. Erasing every cereal commercial image of every kid on earth — and relishing in the sheer kid-ness of the kid in front of us — is one way to make a difference in that child’s life.
Lately, it sorta feels like I’m 0-3 in comparison to that last paragraph’s expectation. In baseball vernacular, it feels like a bit of a “slump.”
Hopefully Oswald and Dr. Tom provided me a slump buster concept today. Hopefully the same concept helps you make a difference for someone today.
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