Posts Tagged ‘hope’

You Have Super Powers

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

As a kid, did you ever want to be Superman with the ability to fly? Or Batman, a regular guy who had all sorts of cool skills and gadgets? My personal favorites were Wonder Woman and the Flash; I loved that both had the power of speed.

Some days, as we go from one life crisis to another, it seems like super powers would be a great addition to our lives. We get caught up in a mental cycle telling ourselves we are too busy or not important enough to really make a difference. Having super powers would solve all that.

But with these excuses, we sell ourselves short.  You don’t need Bruce Wayne’s money or Superman’s fame.  Simple, everyday moments can be enough to make a big difference in someone else’s life.

We have super powers; each and every one of else.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook about a recent trip through drive-thru with two lanes. He and another car both started to pull forward at the same time. He stopped and let the other car go first. When he reached the window to pay, he found out the other car had paid his bill. That story sprouted wings and not only made his day better, it made mine and a lot of other people’s days a bit brighter.

You never know how far your actions will go. From the person who takes a coffee to a co-worker who is having a bad day to the neighbor who helps out when daycare falls through. No matter how small a gesture we make, we have the super power of making a difference in the lives around us.

How’s that for super powers? You can read about the difference one person can make on Danielle Teal’s blog Bethe1. You can learn how to make a difference in a child’s life through mentoring. Help out a neighbor. Read a book to a child.  Join the Olmsted County United Way and the  local community at the Stuff the Bus Finale and Running with Angels Benefit this Saturday at the Wicked Moose.

There are so many ways, so many places we can fit our skills and talents. If only we would take the time.

That’s the Challenge – Who will you use your super powers on? Who’s life will you make a difference in TODAY?

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Civic Parables

Monday, May 18th, 2009

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Early in 2008, after returning from United Way of America’s Community Leadership Conference, Richard Hardwood, founder and president of the Hardwood Institute for Public Innovation wrote “10 Keys to Living United in America.” 

The ninth key is the inspiration for a new category of our blog.

We must learn to tell stories of hope and change – what might be called civic parables [emphasis added]- so that people can see themselves in public life. But this requires us to reject the usual hype and glossed-over public relations, and instead turn to authentic reflections of people’s journeys around change, including why they started out where they did, how they progressed, what went wrong along the way, and what worked. Then maybe more people will step forward.civicparablestxtbox2

In CIVIC PARABLES we invite people to share their “stories of hope and change.” 

  • We are soliciting contributions from “agents of change” who take the risk of authentic reflection on what change requires of us. 
  • We are inviting your comments that in turn reflect upon the story or extend it by adding a story of your own.

We are mindful of Harwood’s observation that, “Bringing about hope and change was never easy, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that our current time will be any different.” 

We also appreciate his take on what “Live United” means (and what it doesn’t mean).

It would be easy to translate the phrase “Live United” to mean that we all simply want to get along, that we envision a world in which disagreements and tensions do not exist. But such a vision would be naive and deny the realities of public life. For me, “Live United” is not rooted in a utopian vision. Rather, it is a call for each of us to step forward to engage with one another and to do our best to repair breaches in our lives and society.

To repair a breach, it must first be acknowledged – so, we expect some of our civic parables may challenge us – but they aim to inspire more than incite. In any event, civic parables aspire to be about what Hardwood calls, in Making Hope Real, “authentic hope.”

Authentic hope is gained when we tell stories of people striving to improve conditions, even when those stories contain their struggles, even their failings, for then people can see and hear themselves.

We’ve invited our first contributors. Expect to hear from them soon. Speaking for ourselves, we can’t wait.

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