Successful Blog

Change the World: Find the Promise

by

Don’t Stop Believing in a Good World

changetheworld8

My friend, Jill, tells this story.

Jill and her daughters were riding the Jurassic Park ride at Universal Studios in Orlando. Lisa, age 11, sat near her mother. Annie, age 7, sat on the outside.

The ride was a machine that moved and rocked in a totally dark room. As the machine rocked and jolted, three-dimensional creatures of huge proportion — including all of the dinosaurs in the movie — appeared to be coming at Jill and her children. The experience was meant to be scary, multisensory, and thrilling.

For 7-year-old Annie, it was overwhelming and frightening.

Jill tried to talk to Annie, but the noise of the constant roaring swallowed up what Jill was saying. All Jill could do was pass a message. She said to her daughter, Lisa, “Tell Annie to close her eyes and cover her ears.”

Lisa did just as her mom told her. But Annie wouldn’t do it. She was in the dark, unhappy, and wanted none of the situation. She also wasn’t too sure of the messenger . . . anyone with older siblings can understand that.

“You’re trying to trick me,” Annie said to Lisa. “I want to go outside.”

The little girl was afraid to believe. She only saw things getting worse and worse. Lisa was devastated that she couldn’t help her little sister.

When they got outside, Lisa and Annie had a long talk. They promised to keep each other safe always.

We first learn the world by believing what people tell us. We ask questions. Sometimes the answers stay the same. Sometimes the answers match what we see around us. From all of that, we make our own belief of how the world works.

Then one day, the world offers up a Jurassic Park ride, and life gets confusing. We wonder what we should be believing. Could it ever possibly be right to close our eyes and cover our ears? Sometimes maybe it is the right answer.

Every Jurassic Park ride offers a promise.

If we go outside, we find the sky isn’t falling. The ground beneath our feet is steady. With a little love, we can fit that scary bit into our world view without destroying our vision of the universe.

Two little girls did that. Imagine the impact, if we all did the same thing.

We can change the world, just like that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: Take a Challenge

by

changetheworld8

How-cool-is-this!!!
Robert Hruzek of Middle Zone Musings sent out an email to a few close friends about a series he writes monthly.

Robert’s been thinking, and he’s decided to make a challenge. He said he wouldn’t mind if I shared that challenge with you. So, here’s an excerpt from that email.

Over the last couple of days I’ve posted a two-part series at Middle Zone Musings on the subject of change, and got so inspired it prompted me to do something crazy (I mean, more than usual). So, go ahead and call me crazy if you like, but here it is: I’ve decided to change the world!

OK, I can hear it now; a chorus of, “Well, that’s just crazy!” (See; told ya!) But I don’t mind; I’m still goin’ for it! But, I really need your help (sound of stampede to the door).

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been inspired by Liz Strauss’s Change The World series of posts. It always amazed me to realize just how much a single person can change the world, given the right circumstances. So I said to myself, “Self, why don’t you change the world?” Amazingly enough, me, myself and I agreed to quit talking about it and actually do something! (After all, it’s so rare that we all agree on something! I mean, besides ice cream; ice cream is always good.)

With that audacious goal in mind, I’ve just kicked off a Special Edition of our usual monthly What I Learned From… writing project with a two part post (yesterday’s and today’s) on the topic of Change. Yes, I know it’s a bit early – usually it starts on the first Monday of every month, but this time we’re going to need a few more days.

Please do me a favor and drop by the Zone, read these posts, and consider the challenge. Then, if you’d like to change the world with me, then by all means, let’s do it!

So, what do you think? Are you up to a challenge?

Will you change the world?

You, me, Robert . . . we can change the world, just like that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: Shaping the World in Little Ways

by

Hey, Jon, How Can We Change the World?

changetheworld8

Jon Swanson and I met not long ago. It was shortly after I had started reading his blog. We haven’t talked on the phone. We’ve merely passed messages like two kids in school. Still I think that because we share a certain mutual friend and because I’ve read what he wrote I know him some what.

I wasn’t surprised when an email with Jon’s post for the Change the World series. I share it now with you.

Shaping the World in Little Ways

Guest Writer: Jon Swanson

People tell me all the time that they want to make their lives matter, that they want to do something significant, that they want to change the world.

All the time? Isn’t that an exaggeration?

Not really. I’m a dad and a husband and a friend and a pastor and a listener. Most of my conversations somehow involve people who aren’t happy with something about their situation, or something about their life or something about their job or something about the furniture or …..

But you said that people were wanting to change the world. You are talking about complaining, aren’t you?

Not really. I have this funny notion that people are connected to each other, that what happens to one person can change someone else.

Yeah, that’s the “butterfly wing” effect, right? A small action somewhere changes something in the other part of the universe. That’s so cliche.

I know. It’s silly. Of course, if I started describing the yellow swallowtail I see in the backyard right now, while sitting in the old rocking chair that my grandfather sat in, and Susan Reynolds thought about it and decided to paint that butterfly, and then put the cards on her website, where Becky McCray ordered some to send a thank you to Jim Long for painting pictures with his words and images, which made Jim particularly motivated in his camera work so that he shot a visual meditation on yellow swallowtails which was edited into the closing credits sequence at the end of the network news someday so that 2-3 million people watching were less cranky about the world when they sat down for supper and encouraged their kids instead of scolding them so that they did well on their tests the next day and school performance, just for a day, improved–would that be cliche?

Well yes. But it would be a good way to show some link love. And what the world needs now is love, link love.

That’s pretty cliche, too.

I know.

Here’s the point. To talk about deciding to change the world ignores the fact that we already are. Our existence, our interactions, our writing, our time, our love, our hate–all of these things are shaping the world in small ways. The question is not whether you are ready to change your world. The question is whether you like the way you are already changing it. And whether you are willing to be part of helping other people change the world. too.

Even if the action is as simple as writing a post.

Like this.

—Jon Swanson
_______
Thanks, Jon, for showing us how we are changing the world in the “ittle ways” that count.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: Listen to the Wisdom of Children

by

Children Are

changetheworld8

I often say that Children were put on Earth to humble their parents.

Truth is that children have a way of humbling us all and teaching us too — if we let them. They’re authentic. Rare is the child before the age of 8 who has a hidden agenda or who has learned to be truly mean or arrogant. They know about love and showing their feelings. They know about taking joy from their accomplishments.

When we meet a grownup who can do all of that we call it wisdom.

It’s something to pay attention to in children.

Once when I taught first-grade, my class got out of hand while they were with their gym teacher. She was a new teacher, frustrated, and so she said without thinking, “You won’t have gym class for the rest of the year.”

When they returned to me, it was obvious they had a problem. We sat in a circle on the floor and had a conversation.

I said, “You know I won’t always be here to help you when things go wrong. You need to figure out how to fix this on your own.” They were six years old.

I left the room and listened at the door.

I heard a young man — yeah that’s what he was –say, “We need to find a way to get Ms. A to believe in us again.”

The wisdom of children. We could learn a lot if we listen.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: Forget the Kids at School, Say It Out Loud

by

We Know, But We Can’t Say It

changetheworld8

It’s those words. They sit right up there in our foreheads. They are the important ones. More often than not, they are words kept captive there by a fear we hold dear.

We know what words they are, in our hearts we do. We know what they mean to us. We can’t say them out loud because, then we would hear them and, we might get the kind of response we got once. We know that’s not so, but knowing is one thing that is easier to say, than to do.

About three nights before SOBCon07, nearing midnight I was on the phone with a dear friend. We were talking about the conference, how the event would soon be real.

I called him by name, I said, “I’m afraid.”

As any friend would, he asked what it was making me feel that way. I saw the words, felt the words, knew the answer then. I probably knew the answer for days before this conversation took place. I felt my throat tighten to think of saying the words out loud.

I said, “I know, but let’s talk some more. I can’t tell you right now.”

A while later, the subject came up again in a natural way. I knew it was important that I say the words out loud for someone to hear. I worked my way up to give context, to build courage, to make sure that we both understood. What I said came out something like this. . . .

I’m not afraid that no one will come. I know they will. I’m not afraid that the event will not be successful. It will be an experience that the attendees will never forget. I’m not afraid of the people in the room for whom I will be speaking.

I’m afraid of the kids I went to grade school with.

He wondered what I meant. I laughed and said, “Don’t worry I can handle them.”
He said, “Please explain.” I did.

What I thought was a story that’s so universal. I said, “Remember when some kids at school made you feel small?”

But those kids had shrunk and vanished the minute I let that fear out of my head — when I said it. At that exact second, they were no longer near, they were decades ago. I knew that they had forgotten me, and I could forget about their laughter at my expense. They looked small and young in the distance.

I wish we didn’t hold a fear to say what we know is our truth waiting to be said. “I’m afraid, because of the kids I went to school with.” How silly is that? Boy am I glad that sentence is out of my head.

We hold onto sentences like that. I can’t say out loud who I am, what I’m good at, what I love, where I’m going, what I dream, what I fear, what I need, what I hope, because if I say it out loud I might hear and you might respond like the kids did at school.

Imagine if we choose wisely enough to trust and to talk out loud to folks who can see us.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Change the World: Choosing Our Own Path

by

Peer Pressure for Adults

changetheworld8

Authenticity. It’s not easy to be authentic. I wonder whether anyone can. Maybe it’s a self-actualizing quest. Maybe it’s a journey, not a destination.

Yet.

An authentic world of transparent events, where fear of oneself no longer exists, has the potential beauty and productivity of any phenomenon nature ever made.

Yet.

As I look back at those who have walked to their calling, or at the tiny ones I taught who knew their own truth, I see they both found some rocky walking as they made their way along their paths. It’s my experience, too, that as I find my feet — as I know which direction is mine and which place to stand — some folks find it a duty to tell me what my role is and to follow the path that they set.

No.

“Choose wisely. Choose wisely, but choose your own path,” my father said. So did my friends. “Choose not for others, but always hold your choice for yourself.”

The choice is the action. The choice is the hope. The choice is the relationship and the place where you’ll go. The choice is the chance to know your head and your heart as they become your life. It is the choice that honors your self and the people you respect and love.

Only you know which is the right choice.

Say, “no.” When they say, “be someone other.”

Say, “no.” When they ask you to do what they won’t.

Say, “no.” Unless your heart and your head say “this is where my feet need to go.”

Authenticity knows how to choose its own path.

Authenticity is having faith in ourselves.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss