“It never hurts to think too highly of a person; often they become ennobled and act better because of it.” - Nelson Mandela
We’re entering the time of year again when we start to consider our own health, motivation and ponder creating New Year resolutions. Time after time we go through this self-reflective and sometimes painful process. Introspection and self-reflection are admirable qualities and it’s important to ponder on our lives. However, let’s admit it; one of the hardest things to do is to accept our own goodness. It easy to find fault within ourselves, consider our unfavorable habits or less than perfect features. The challenging thing to do is to acknowledge our amazing abilities, our warm hearts and endearing personalities. So this year when thinking about which things you want to start or stop, also think about the wonderful qualities and traits you already have and give yourself a pat on the back. I was recently reminded of the following story and think it provides a great analogy for our own health and mindset.
On one particularly anxious and distracted afternoon a high school history teacher told her class to stop all their academic work. She let her students rest while she wrote on the blackboard a list of names of everyone in the class and then asked each student to copy the list. She instructed them to use the rest of the period to write beside each name one thing they admired or liked about that student. At the end of class she collected the papers.
Weeks later on another somber afternoon before Winter break, the teacher stopped the class. She handed each student a sheet with his or her name on top. On it she had pasted all twenty-six good things the other students had written about that person. They smiled, giggled and gasped in pleasure that so many beautiful qualities were noticed about them.
Three years later this teacher received a call from the mother of one of her former students. Robert had been a challenging student, but also one of her favorites. His mother sadly passed on the terrible news that Robert had been killed in the Gulf War. The teacher attended the funeral, where man of Robert’s former friends and high school classmates spoke. Just as the service was ending, Robert’s mother approached her. She took out a worn piece of paper, obviously folded and refolded many times, and said, “This was one of the few things in Robert’s pocket when the military retrieved his body.” It was the paper on which the teacher had so carefully pasted the twenty-six things his classmates had admired.
Seeing this, Robert’s teacher’s eyes filled with tears. As she dried her wet cheeks, another former students standing nearby opened her purse, pulled out her own carefully folded page and confessed that she always kept it with her. A third ex-student said that his page was framed and hanging in his kitchen; another told how the page had become part of her wedding vows. The perception of goodness invited by this teacher had transformed the hearts of her students in ways she might only have dreamed about.
The end of the year is a time to contemplate our lives, habits, relationships and thought process. It’s an amazing opportunity to begin living healthier, exercise more frequently and live life more fully. It’s important however to not only consider ways to improve but to consider the many positive traits and qualities we already have; let’s be honest, we’re a lot more critical of ourselves than we need to be. Developing this positive mindset will allow us to begin accepting our own goodness, the goodness in others and start the process of transforming not only our bodies and minds but the minds of others.
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