Guest Post by Marie Freidberger Marie Freiberger is the sister-in-law of our very own graphic designer, Martine Freiberger who had told the writer about our very own Director of Good, Dan Estabrook. Marie lives in Bowdoinham, Maine (soon to relocate to San Diego) and makes an excellent point about her own perception of “goodness.”
A friend of mine wrote me an email the other day. She referred to someone who had the title Director of Good. “I wish I had that title” she wrote. My first thought was to chuckle, then I thought about the friend and what type of person she is. I thought, “Wow, she really deserved the title Director of Good, as she is one of the kindest people I know.” Then I thought a little deeper and realized that we all can use the same title as we are all the Director of Good of our own lives. I know, I know, it’s a big lofty title reserved for people who do profoundly selfless things, but those are the organizers and frequently they are so tied up organizing they don’t get a lot of time to do. It’s the everyday people who show up to do small things, the drops in the bucket, who work together to accomplish a great deed.
When I lived in Southern California, everyone was encouraged to keep an emergency earthquake kit. In it, one of the chief items was a bottle of bleach. In the event of an emergency, with just 10 drops of bleach, we were supposed to be able to take nasty, unhealthy water and turn it into drinkable water. Just 10 drops of bleach was the difference between drinking water that would make you sick or water that could keep you hydrated and healthy, even alive.
Later, as I went into teaching, frustration frequently was expressed over there being too many needs and too few resources to meet them. Time after time, I would hear the term “I am just a drop in the bucket, and I don’t make nearly enough of a difference.” Always, the thought of those 10 life-saving drops of bleach in a gallon of water came to mind. While each of us are only one single drop, together with another nine people, we could turn the life of a child around. There are no scientific facts on that being true and sometimes it took more then 10 of us, but still the concept follows me.
Think about the worst day you have had. Now imagine if just 10 of those disasters had been changed into to good things, wouldn’t it have easily become one of the best days of your life? If someone had let you into traffic you might not have late to work. If you weren’t late to work you might not have been running and might not have spilled coffee all over yourself before a big meeting. If you weren’t covered in coffee when you made your presentation after running in late to the meeting, your idea might have been taken seriously. So on and so forth, and that is just one act of kindness and the impact it could have on your day.
So now, back to my friend and her desire to be Director of Good. Why can’t she become the Director of Good in her own life? Can she perform just ten kind deeds in one day? Can she let a driver in front of her in traffic, leave a little extra time in a parking meter for the next guy, recycle a newspaper, pick up a piece of trash and put it in the garbage can? What if she let someone go ahead of her in the grocery line? Little things, to be sure, but the key comes in where your focus lies. When you stop to think about what little thing you can do for someone else, you focus on other people, not yourself. By trying to share acts of kindness, we start to look for where we can be a “drop.”
With just 10 of those drops, we don’t change another person’s life so much as we change ours. So I challenge you to be Director of Good in your own life. Just for the next seven days, try doing 10 drops of goodness for people whether you know them or not and see if you can’t change frustration to happiness by sanitizing the world with 10 simple acts of goodness.