I just finished reading a book called The Celebrants by Steven Rowley. It’s about a group of transfer students to Berkley, after their first semester elsewhere, who become fast friends. One of them dies close to graduation and there was so much they wished they could have said to him. After his funeral, they make a pact. The pact is that they will have living funerals, ones that celebrate the person before they are dead. Each person is responsible for when they want to have their funerals. And when they do, it is game-changing for each of them.
Picking away at this book for several nights, I was having trouble following the story and kept thinking “Why the heck am I reading this?” Then as I got close to the end, it all made perfect and wonderful sense. We need to feel purpose, wanted, and loved. We need to know we have made a difference in the world and to someone. We need someone to see us in ways we haven’t. Someone to see the potential we have discounted.
People have a way of saying great things about us after we are dead. What if we could change that and hear what we need now?
Sometimes (who am I kidding…) We harbor resentments, aren’t willing to forgive people, get stuck in the stories we tell ourselves, and look for others to fix what is broken for us. We get stuck in places we don’t want to be and can’t see our way clear. When the black raincloud of pity and sorrow follows us around for too long, it can be hard to see the break in the clouds and the following rainbow. But it is there. And who better to help you see your way than the people who know you and love you best?
One of the most powerful things is knowing you made a difference in someone’s life and that you made a difference in your own. Often, it can be hard for us to see the good in ourselves and trusted friends can help us with that. Each of us has gifts we bring to the world, unique gifts.
The world would not be the same without you in it.
We are all piloting our own crafts through different circumstances with a toolbox built from our life experiences. No one can do it alone. Find your people. Tell them how they have impacted your life. See the things in them they can’t see in themselves. Plant the seed of their worth and place in the world.
If more of us did this, what would our world look like?
Hearing from the people around us that we have made an impact in their lives is a powerful experience. There are many lives each of us touches and we never will know that. But if we can share what we can when we can, it empowers the recipient to know they can face whatever it is, get through whatever the circumstance is, and they will be able to do it. Either in their own way or with the help and support of others.
And what happens next is powerful. It will come back to you. Maybe not in the way you have envisioned or the path that you thought made the most sense to you. But it comes back.
Plant those seeds.
Some are for others and some are for you. I want to tell each of you that you are amazing and gifted in so many things. You can do the thing, whatever that thing is you want to do. And yes, you are enough.
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Housekeeping note: This substack officially starts my second year of writing on this platform. Yup, I have more than 52 of these that I have written. I would not have guessed that I could have maintained this each week for a year. But here I am.
Now and then, I pull up an old one and learn something new. Take a look and see if there is one you haven’t read. Or re-read one that spoke to you at a particular moment. Here is a link to all of them. Let me know what speaks to you in this moment…
(I love to hear your thoughts….)
Congratulations on 1 year in the books! Awesome job. Have made my Sundays are made for your Substacks. A most enjoyable and rewarding part of the weekend. Keep up the great work. 😉😊🤓