For quite some time, I’ve been a big fan of meaningful quotations.
In my office, I have several quotations on my wall. They range from the inspirational to the humorous. Instead of all of the quotes that I love, I am compelled to tell you about one that I recently took down from my office wall. The quote, from an unknown source, is as follows: “On some days you’re the pigeon, and on some days you’re the statue.”
When I first saw this humorous quote, I thought “Yeah, that’s right. On some days you get dumped on, and on others you do the dumping.” It was a great little relief valve for those times when I had a rough day (and was the statue).
I’ve thought about that quote quite a bit over the last several weeks… …and thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it. Is that all there is? Are my only choices to be either the recipient of negativity, or its distributor?
I’ve come to the conclusion that the quote is a recipe for disaster. Are there days when we get dumped on? Absolutely. Do we HAVE to be the kind of person who dumps on others when we get the opportunity, however justified it may be? Absolutely not! Doing so only creates a negative cycle of criticism and judgmental attitudes.
We can choose to be a perpetual encourager. By a choice of our will, we can pass up those opportunities to jump down someone’s throat when their stupidity, arrogance, stubbornness, etc. is so painfully apparent to us. We can instead choose to seize the opportunity to be kind, supportive, instructional, and encouraging.
It takes effort, and you may have to retrain yourself to get into such a habit, but I encourage you to begin doing so now. I predict that you will experience less stress, more productivity, and you will discover the joy that a positive cycle of encouragement and support brings to everyone involved.
I have taken that quote down from my office wall, but more importantly I’ve taken it down from my heart.
Will you join me?
Make it an AWESOME today, and a BETTER tomorrow,
Originally published in KeyNotes Volume #2 on 7 February 2002.
Leave a Reply