Helpful, Kind and Wise
What do you want to be when you grow up? This is a question that we ask kids. We hear answers like, “Ballerina, Fireman, Police officer” and my current favorite, “Youtuber.” This makes me wonder, “Isn’t a tuber a root crop like a potato? Who wants to grow up to be a potato?” But clearly, I don’t get the point!
We ask this question of kids, but do we ask it of ourselves? I had an executive coach a few years ago who asked me, “What are three words you would like to describe you?” This prompted some reflection and thought about how I would have answered when I was younger and early in my career. Back then I wanted to be right, smart and to win. In fact, in a counseling session in my twenties I identified “being wrong” as my greatest fear.
Well, life has taught me that I am wrong a lot! And if I was going to be afraid of being wrong, I would live perpetually afraid. In Jesus’ parable of the talents three stewards are given various sums of money to manage for the owner. The third steward is afraid of his master and because of his fear he hid the money in the ground. When the owner returned from a trip he gave the original sum back. But the master was angry because the servant should have at least put the money in the bank to earn some interest.# From this story I understand that fear creates inaction. So, being afraid stops us from accomplishing our purpose. Or accomplishing anything at all.
Having lived and learned that I will be wrong, I no longer fear being wrong. And so, “being right” is no longer something I strive for. Instead, my three words are now “Helpful, kind and wise.”
Helpful to me means assisting others. Providing support and aid to enable other people to achieve and accomplish. I have built and won enough and don’t need any more credit. It satisfies me immensely when people I help get their own wins and glory.
Kindness is not a natural state for me. No, my state of nature is to compete and win. And these qualities push kindness way down the list. But I am cultivating kindness. Pulling up weeds of competition, selfishness and ego-drive. I am convinced that I will face a judgement where our work will become manifest: some of what we did will be burned and some will survive. I have it on good authority that selfless kindness will survive the fire.
Wisdom is the application of information. To be wise starts with an accurate understanding of things as they really are, which is a philosopher’s definition of truth. And then to that understanding, wisdom adds information which leads to good decision making.
So those are my three words. I work daily to become a person who can be described as helpful, kind and wise.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
#Matthew 25:14-30