The circumstances of your life have uniquely qualified you to make a contribution. And if you dont make that contribution, nobody else can make it. --Rabbi Harold S. Kushner Every experience you have in your life, good or bad, helps shape who you are, what you will become and the contribution you can make. Few people stop long enough to connect the dots of their circumstances and experiences to see the pattern that is being woven into the fabric of their life or career. Yet if you do pause and ponder on the path you have taken thus far, you may be surprised to see how small and insignificant experiences,choices and challenges have perfectly positioned you for the opportunities to make a difference today. For example, you may not have realized that your decision to walk away from a good paying, but dead-end job, led you to take a lower paying but high prospect position, which caused you to meet a certain person who would, 10 years later, introduce you to a business partner and the opportunity of your lifetime. You might also discover that the journey gave you unique insight into risk taking, or the challenges of a certain group of people and positioned you to develop a product or service that is now making a difference for many of those very people. Similar descriptions could be written about a host of other life experiences such as a relationship that didn’t end the way you had hoped, schooling that didn’t lead where you thought, having to move out of a wonderful neighborhood, opportunities to pursue talents cut short by injury or illness and much much more. The world tends to play the destination end-game – where nothing really counts until you arrive – as in arriving at the perfect job, perfect family situation, perfect financial status etc. If your life and career truly were an end-game, there wouldn’t be much value to it – as we rarely end up where we think we are ultimately going. Making a contribution happens when you realize that all of your circumstances and all of your experiences are what enable you to make a difference and contribute to people, communities or causes. Truly no one in the world can be a better you, than you! And, the world needs you to be you – it doesn’t need you to be anyone else – it has that covered. The world doesn’t need you to be Bill Gates, Bill Cosby or Billy the Kid; nor does it need you to be Martha Stewart,Martha Washington or Margaret Thatcher. Your contribution rests on you and you alone. It is dependent on you valuing your journey and all you learn from it. It is also dependent on your willingness to share what you have learned with those who need to be influenced by you. The old saying, “to the world you may be just one person,but to one person you may just be the world,” is more true today than ever before. Kushner was right, “if you don’t make that contribution, nobody else can make it.” As an individual of infinite worth choose to contribute, choose to make a difference, choose to be the one who makes a positive impact. And while your name may not be recorded in the history books, it will be recorded in the hearts and minds of those you influence – and no one is more uniquely qualified to make such an important contribution than you. Go for it!
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 23:04:37 +0000
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