The Seat No One Offered
One sentence you can carry, or hand to someone, this week. Share the note itself.
At 6:19 in the morning, an older woman stood at a crowded gate, and not one person moved. What happened next made me ask a question I couldn’t answer.
At 6:19 in the morning last week, I was sitting at the gate of a small airport with one flight headed to Atlanta. Everyone looked tired. Nobody was talking.
Then an older woman came to find a seat, and no one offered her one. Nobody wanted to sit beside anyone.
So I scooted over one seat. She looked at me with a little bit of disbelief on her face, almost shocked that someone would move for her. To me, it wasn’t a huge deal. It was one seat. To her, it was apparently more than she expected from anyone that morning.
Principle
I don’t think the people at that gate were unkind. I think they were tired. When we’re running on empty, the first thing we lose is the ability to see the person right in front of us.
That’s why rest matters more than we think. Not the kind where we collapse in front of the television at night, but the kind that revives something in us. A long walk. Sitting outside in the fall breeze. Doing something you genuinely enjoy.
A few days before that flight, someone at an event asked me what I do. I told him I help people dream big about what they want to accomplish with their generosity, and how their soul can be fulfilled by doing it. He said he’d never heard it put that way. We tell our kids to dream all the time, to shoot for the stars, but as we grow up, we start playing it safe. Remember the board you made in elementary school, covered in magazine cutouts and newspaper scraps of what you wanted to become? We never do that as adults. A worn out soul doesn’t have room to dream. It’s just trying to make it to the next gate.
Reflection
Have you actually rested today, in a way that revived you? When was the last time you let yourself dream bigger than safe? Who was right in front of you this week that you were too tired to see?
Sticky Note
Have I actually rested today?
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