What Does Sacrifice Really Mean To You?

True love is selfless. It is prepared to sacrifice. - Sadhu Vaswani

Love is not a feeling of happiness. Love is a willingness to sacrifice. - Michael Novak

This blog post is a slight departure from my typical blog style and content.  There is, as always, a method to my madness …..

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On a hot summer evening in Calgary, Alberta, Sam and his wife prepared for bed.  They had been having conversations earlier about her struggles living in small towns in Western Canada, the difficulty growing up with few real friends and the emotional scars left from wounds long since inflicted during an oftentimes difficult childhood.

Sam paused for a moment before looking into her eyes and saying “If someone could invent a way where I could go back in time and take those hurts from you, I would do it.  I would do anything and sacrifice anything to change your past and give you a better future, even if it meant losing you in the process.”

His wife looked at him and her eyes misted over.  “That is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me”, she said, “Now you see why I tell you so many times how blessed I am by your love.”

They hugged for a moment, kissed and then Sam turned out the lights.  He looked over sleepily at the clock radio and made sure that it was set to turn on his favorite Calgary radio station at 7am.  Moments later, sleep overtook him.

Or he thought it had.  He suddenly awoke with a start in a room that he didn’t recognize with three figures standing before him.  “It’s ok”, the tallest of the three assured him, “You are safe and will not be harmed.”

“Where am I?”, asked Sam, “Am I awake or dreaming?”

“How do you differentiate between the two ordinarily?”, asked the same figure as he smiled oddly.

“Why, I’m not sure what you mean”, stammered Sam, “I ….”

The tall figure held up his right hand and interrupted him.  “We understand that you expressed a strong desire to help your wife release her difficult past.  Is that so?”, he asked.

“How do you know that”, asked Sam suspiciously, his sense of alertness returning as the fog of sleep lifted from his brain.

“That is of no concern to you”, replied the figure as his colleagues took up positions behind Sam.

“What I offer you”, continued the figure, “is the ability to make your wife’s pain go away.  Her Life will become the very Life you desire for her.  You indicated that you would do anything to make this happen.  Do you still feel this way?  Are you willing to do whatever it takes, even if it means that you create a different past and thus likely a different present for both of you?  After all, changing the past oftentimes produces unpredictable results.”

“I would do anything”, replied Sam.  “I would do anything to release her from the demons from her past that have tormented her so that we can create a new future together without the weight of that past.”

“As I said”, continued the figure, “There are no guarantees regarding what is produced in her present when we change her past.  However, we can assure you that her demons will be erased from her past just as you requested.  Is that what you wish?”

Sam suddenly felt afraid but even as he felt his fear of these men growing, he found himself nodding his head silently.

“Even if it changes your present in ways that cannot be predicted?”, asked the figure forcefully as he leaned in and looked into Sam’s eyes intently.

Sam swallowed hard and heard himself say “Yes” quietly.

“Very well”, said the figure.  Nodding to his colleagues, he looked Sam in the eye again and said “We shall proceed”.

The room was suddenly filled with a blinding light ….

…. and Sam found himself blinking at the sunlight pouring in through his bedroom window as the radio suddenly came on at the preappointed 7am.

Rubbing his eyes blearily and shaking his head as he replayed in his mind the craziest of dreams, he suddenly frowned as he listened to the voice on the radio.

You are listening to WNYC in New York.  The forecast for New York City today will be …..

“New York?”, he thought.  “What the heck’s going on here?”

Rolling over to ask his wife, he suddenly stopped cold in utter confusion.

This wasn’t his normal bed.

And he was alone in it.

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This story came to mind today as I discussed with someone the importance of sacrifice for others and most specifically:

When we say we would do anything for someone or something, do we really mean it?

Are we prepared for what the Universe might deliver in answering such a pledge?

Do we understand the ramifications of what such a statement could produce if someone could make it come true?

The Bottom Line

When you say you would do anything in order for your business, your relationships or your Life to produce the results that you desire, do you really mean it?

How badly do you want the same to come true for others who are important to you?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

What are you waiting for?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

The Value of A Second in Time

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst. - William Penn

You may delay, but time will not. - Benjamin Franklin

I was reminded of the value of a single second yesterday as I drove behind a limousine in Calgary when suddenly a vehicle approaching from our right ignored a stop signal and t-boned the limousine.

After stopping to make sure that everyone was ok, to provide witness contact information and the like, I left the scene reflecting on the value of one second and I realized that if I had been one second further ahead or the driver had been one second slower, I would have been the one t-boned by the wayward driver.  Driving a much smaller vehicle, it is unknown what such an event would have produced but likely it would not have been very good.

In talking to a few people about the incident, most of them expressed the idea that “nothing happened so I should ignore it”.

However, I see it differently.

I see such moments as reinforcements or reminders for maintaining an attitude of gratitude, that it is important to never take anything for granted.

Such incidents also remind me of the value of a single second and how that one second can make all the difference in our world or the worlds of others.

Now in fairness, there is not much that one can do with a single second and so maybe the people I spoke to are right.  Maybe in fact I am making too much out of the value of a single second in time.

But I look at it this way.

If I offer you something that weighs an ounce, it’s negligible weight is barely noticeable.  If I add another ounce, it doesn’t feel like much either.  However, if I add another ounce and yet another and keep on adding weight an ounce at a time, the negligible additions will eventually exceed your strength, either exhausting you or crushing you.

Time is like that.

A second doesn’t mean a whole lot.  A second second following the first won’t feel like much either.

However, as time accumulates, it suddenly has value, compounded by the notion that once spent, the time is not recoverable, what we have created with it cannot be undone and we don’t know how much time we have left.

The Bottom Line

Maybe we have years left.

Or maybe we have a single second.

And so maybe the folks I spoke to are wrong and I am right.

Maybe that one second can in fact make all the difference ….. in personal relationships, in professional success and maybe in your Life itself.

With that in mind, I wonder what would happen if we treated every second with the respect commensurate with the value potential contained within it.

What would we do with our Life if we actually honored the true value contained within a single second?

Do you treat every second with such respect?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Your Life Story–Do You Hear What I Hear?

I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening. - Larry King

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk. – Doug Larson

Some years ago, I was driving home from work when for some reason I felt strongly compelled to stop into a retirement facility in the area.  It was an odd feeling since I did not have any friend or family member in residence there but I felt it was important to stop by anyway.

After arriving at the facility, I wandered around the grounds, not really engaging with anyone while simultaneously wondering why I was there when suddenly my eyes locked with the eyes of an elderly gentleman sitting alone.

For reasons unknown to me until today, I walked over to him, introduced myself and sat beside him.  He introduced himself as Mr. Green and within minutes he began telling me his Life story.

Mr. Green had outlived his children, his wife and his siblings and was spending the final days of his Life alone at this facility.  He told me stories of growing up in a small outport in Newfoundland, of the days where he would row more than 5 miles one way every day across the harbor (and the same distance back later in the evening) to visit the woman who would later become his wife and the victories and challenges he had experienced raising his family in a small town.

The few hours I spent with him went by quickly and he thanked me for taking the time to listen to his “silly stories”.  I in turn thanked him for sharing with me the most powerful moments of his Life and then I left.

And just as I couldn’t explain at the time why I had stopped by that day, for reasons equally unknown to me, I never returned to visit Mr. Green again.

That interaction took place 30 years ago, remaining dormant and forgotten in my memory until a conversation with someone today about the importance of listening brought the events back to me as if they had happened yesterday.

The power in our story

Mr. Green thought his collection of memories were merely silly stories when in fact they were a beautiful compilation of a Life well-lived.

A Life like his.

A Life like yours.

As he told me his stories, he saw each of them as expressions of stand-alone, unrelated events.  I saw them as an unfolding tapestry of connected events, each event in his Life clearly and obviously equipping him for the next event in his Life.

In speaking to someone about his story today, they made an observation that I thought was powerful.  The observation was this:

After we have survived or experienced a significant event in our Life, is there a hint of our future that is provided to us?

Do we listen to the messages that such events present to us?

Do we see the connection between the events in our Lives?

I found this to be an emotionally stirring series of questions.  << Yes, we tough, cold, ruthless Wall St. ***holes have been known to get misty-eyed in coffee shops.  Please don’t tell anyone – we have a reputation to protect. >>

Mr. Green did not see the connection between the events nor did he see how each event equipped him with new knowledge, wisdom and growth in his character, values and morals to prepare him for the next event.

He didn’t see the importance of the lessons he had acquired through the living of his Life.

He did not understand the true value of the events he had experienced.

He did not fully comprehend the value of his Life story.

And he didn’t understand the impact of sharing his stories with a young stranger who wandered into the retirement facility that day for unknown reasons.

Unknown to me until today ……

It is true that each of us is nothing more than a collection of stories.  It is these stories that define the legacy that we leave behind when we have long-since departed this place.

Our stories represent our perception and expression of our experiences both significant and mundane.  While we are the primary author of our story, many people are brought into or forced into our lives to contribute material to our story while we are simultaneously invited or forced to contribute material to theirs, creating the collection of comedies and tragedies that form the essence of who we are.

Many of our stories are written in the public eye.

Many are written seemingly in private when we think that no one is watching.

Regardless of how we write our stories, there is someone out there who is modeling our behavior or looking up to us in some way.

In those moments, we are not just writing our story.

We are creating or providing the material by which others are writing their story as we knowingly or unknowingly participate as coauthors.

The Bottom Line

Remember when we used to take our high school yearbooks and collect the autographs of our fellow classmates, creating a permanent memory of who they were?

In a similar way, people leave indelible marks on our hearts and Spirits as we make our way through Life, adding material to our Book of Life, inviting us to contribute to theirs or one person being forced to accept the contribution of another.

And as we write our collective stories together, what matters is that we are listening to the story that our Lives are expressing about us, since we never know who is modeling our Life or looking up to us for wisdom, knowledge or inspiration.

The questions then become ….

Are you listening to your story and the impact on others?

Are you listening to the stories of others and their impact on you?

Are you listening at all?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

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Related posts:

• Connecting the Dots–Valuing the Connections In Your Life

Connecting the Dots–Valuing the Connections In Your Life

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. - Steve Jobs

After a high-energy, frantic pace over the last couple of months (apologies to those who enjoy my musings, I’ve been light in content these days), I found myself reflecting on the nature of the “dots” in our Life - the significant events in our Lives that shape who we are, the results we produce and the legacy that we leave behind.

Many who strive for success believe that those who have found it have followed a Life journey that looks like this:

Others will tell you that the journey looks more like this:

In truth the journey theoretically looks more like the following, where the dots in our Lives and the dots of the Lives of others overlap for a duration that varies from brief to a Lifetime, with the overlap changing each person’s Life in known or unknown ways in regards to scale, duration and results:

In reality, the Life journey looks more like the following, with the “dots” of many people overlapping ours, enhancing or impeding our Lives as other people collaborate or interfere with us:

So what are the odds of two dots connecting?

I sat down the other day with someone and calculated, based on their Life experiences and mine, factoring in significant Life events such as surviving life-threatening illnesses, serious accidents and the like, that the odds of both of us surviving long enough to meet each other and being in the same place at the same moment to actually meet each other were approximately 1 in 38,500,000.

When I reflected upon that statistic, I compared the result to these observations:

1. I need to buy more Canadian lottery tickets, with the odds of winning the big prize being approximately 1 in 14,000,000.
2. I need to stay indoors during thunderstorms as the odds of being struck by lightning in a lifetime is only 1 in 3,000.

I could say that I need to stay away from airplanes, with the odds of dying in a plane crash being 1 in 11,000,000 but I have survived 4 airplane incidents in my lifetime so I will ignore that statistic.

The Bottom Line

While not every connection has the outrageous odds against that I calculated above, if the odds are slim that you will come into someone else’s Life (or that they will come into yours), I would think that such reality places an extremely high value on the coalescing of two people’s “dots” whether the “dots” overlap for a moment or for a Lifetime, since the result potential, good or bad, is not likely to be produced in exactly that form ever again.

If the potential for a unique lesson or result is that rare, I would think that such rare odds of meeting should serve as a reminder to each of us that each interaction has unlimited potential in value if we are open to seeing it, embracing it and exploring it.

And finally, I think if you have lost sight of the value of a relationship, you should dust off your old high school mathematics textbook and recalculate the odds that the relationship exists and having done so, rethink what this means in your Life.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS For those who prefer my very serious strategy, biz, Poli Sci and #1206 musings, I will return to them soon.  You’re not forgotten.