Tag: family

Life By Design

Frank Lloyd Wright - Falling Water
Frank Lloyd Wright – Falling Water

Last week I read this post about living an unremarkable life. I really appreciated the author’s perspective. We can’t all be the founders of new multi-billion dollar companies, and I’ve long appreciated the people who quietly do everyday things that make the world seem to effortlessly flow. Crops grow, planes take off, shelves are stocked, floors are cleaned. Sometimes people just have to work and we can’t all be chasing extravagant dreams all the time.

But then I listened to a friend talk about the difference between resigning yourself to something versus choosing to design the experience and its effects. He was talking about healthcare and how we can design better treatment and experiences for patients, but the idea applies to life as a whole.

Should I resign myself to the fact that I’m a plumber and wear overalls and boots to work everyday? Should I resign myself to  sacrificing my needs so I can care for aging parents? Am I resigned to never traveling the world, never being rich or famous, never winning awards or having my name in print?

Or, am I living my life by design? My dream is to have a remarkable family, and I choose to make that happen by designing a home environment where love is spoken and felt. The difference that I am making in someone’s life is to smile and hold the door for the woman behind me. Believe it or not, I decide when I am going to have a good day – you can too.

My counter to the original article is that we can all live remarkable lives. It’s just up to us to design what remarkable means. I’m never going to be famous.  My parents were everyday people, we went on road trips and worked in the garden and shared clothes.  But they taught us how to laugh and sing and work together and serve others. That didn’t happen by accident, it happened by design. And I think it’s pretty remarkable.

Learning to Give

learning

In my Personal Financial Planning class, one of the four stated objectives is Learning to Give. The syllabus explains:

Learn to give.  If you cannot learn to give when you are poor (which is now), you will never learn to give when you are rich.  Someone said “We make a living by what we get, but we build a life by what we give.” Giving is not determined by your checkbook, but by your heart.

I hadn’t really thought specifically about learning to give, how I learned it, or what inspired others. When thinking about it, though, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Giving is a learned attribute, something that is most often ingrained in us as children.

One of my family’s favorite Christmas stories is from when we were living in Germany many years ago. My grandparents came in to town on the train, and when my mom went to pick them up from the station they encountered an elderly woman who was alone and trying to find a place where she could get dinner on Christmas Eve. In the completely pure-hearted manner that I learned to recognize in my parents, they just scooped her up and brought her home with them to spend the holiday meal with our family.

We had five girls at home, aged about 12 years old to 2. We didn’t speak German. She didn’t speak English. But somehow that wasn’t a problem at all. We sang songs and reenacted the Nativity scene, and at the end of the evening we were eager to finish our traditions by opening one present. With this stranger in our midst, we were instantaneously transformed from gift receivers to gift givers. We ran around the house finding anything that might be appropriate for our new friend. I remember pulling a decorative little hat off the wall and wrapping it with hurried care. This sweet woman was overcome by the simple generosity of a young family, opening their home to a perfect stranger.

Twenty years later, my grandparents, parents and sisters still recount this story with lots of smiles and laughter. It’s a great memory for all of us, but it’s also more than that. As we sit around reminiscing and share this story with the next generation of children and grandchildren, we’re teaching a critical lesson. We are givers. We open our hearts and our homes to those in need. That is a scary thing to do! Life is hectic and sometimes we barely have enough resources just to get from day to day. But when we are willing to take a moment and give back, it makes life so much sweeter.

To help implement learning (and teaching) to give, this year I am going to give Kiva cards to my close friends and family. I am so excited for my little nephews to look through the website and decide which person to loan their money to and to get them thinking about the lives and circumstances of people in other parts of the world. I’m also looking into KidsasHeroes.org to see if there are any other programs that we can help support as a family.

There are thousands of opportunities to make an impact and help others. What tools and resources have you used to encourage others to learn to give?