Inspiring change or negative, negative, negative!

Posted by on May 18, 2012 in Sticky Pad

I am becoming fascinated by the amount of negative ‘stuff’ I am hearing. The BBC Breakfast programme this morning was a classic! £100 vouchers are to be introduced by the Coalition for parents looking to improve their ‘parenting skills.’ The lovely lady being ‘quizzed’ by the interviewers was subject to ‘total negativity’ by Charlie and Louise. The people who worked hard at coming up with the concept must have been wondering why they allowed it to be featured? Negative after negative after negative questions—not a single one about any positive possibilities!

Then I read some of Damian Hughes and he made me feel much better—because we all have the chance to do something differently—to inspire change in others.

Damian Hughes, author of CHANGE INSPIRATION has written this. What does it do for your emotions may I ask?

In 1999, An American Sociologist, Dr Anthony Campolo, conducted a survey where a group of elderly people, all of whom were aged 95 or over, were asked “If you were to live your life over again, what would you do differently next time?” Three top answers were: “have less regrets” “take time to reflect more” and “leave a legacy”.

One 96 year old man told his story:

One day I was sorting through my old attic when I pulled from a box what appeared to be a diary from my grown son’s childhood. I did not recall ever having seen it before, or that my son had ever kept a diary.

When I opened the yellowed pages, I glanced over a short reading and my eyes brightened as I read the words that spoke to my heart. It was the voice of my little boy that had grown up far too fast in this very house and whose voice had grown fainter and fainter over the years. In the utter silence of the attic, the words of a guileless six-year-old worked their magic and carried me back to a time I had almost forgotten.

Entry after entry stirred my emotions but it was accompanied by a painful memory that my son’s simple recollections of those days were far different from my own. But how different? I had always kept a daily diary of my own business activities and I found the corresponding year and then laid the two diaries beside each other. Mine was leather bound and engraved with my name in gold while my son’s was tattered and his name was nearly scuffed from the surface.

As I opened my journal, my eyes fell upon an inscription that stood out because it was so brief in comparison to other days. In my own neat handwriting were the words: wasted the whole day fishing with Robert. Didn’t catch a thing.

With a deep sigh and a shaking hand, I took my son’s journal and found his entry for the same day. Large scrawling letters, pressed deeply into the paper, read:

Went fishing with my dad. Best day of my life.


What are you waiting for? Let’s go and inspire change.

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