Make it Count

I attended a dinner awhile back. It was a dinner in which alumnae were honored for various reasons and inducted for feats preformed since the glory days of high school. I walked away from that dinner feeling satisfied from time well-spent with family and friends (my sister-in-law was an honoree); inspired by others’ stories; and I left with a thing or two to ponder.

One of the women who was honored had a very touching story. She was the mother of two children. Her son was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer at a very early age. He spent a lot of his 13 years in the hospital because he wanted to make a difference in the lives of other terminally ill children. He made it count.

This family whose story was such an inspiration started me wondering why some people take devastating life-situations and turn them into opportunities of hope for others.

What makes someone decide to climb outside of their own despair and involve themselves in the pain of others? How do they decide, in the midst of their own tragedy, to reach out and make whatever is happening in their own lives, worth something good on behalf of someone else?

Most don’t. It is usually all some people can do just to struggle through, much less emerge with such grace, peace, and a spirit of giving.

How do you make it count? I’m sure you have been through a thing or two in your life. Maybe not a child with a rare form of cancer who has spent most of their short life in one hospital or another, trying to help others in pain. It doesn’t matter really what you have encountered, especially not to compare it to the story of some else. What matters is how do you make it count?

Though I’m not sure I have an answer to those questions, I suspect it has something to do with attitude, gratitude and an ability to look beyond the temporary situations of this journey called life and see the bigger picture.

Jim Rohn’s words echo in my mind as I muse along these lines. “It’s not what happens that determines your life future” he was known to say, “It’s what you do about what happens. We are all in life’s sailboat. It’s not the blowing of the wind that determines your destination, it’s the set of the sail. The same wind blows on us all. The difference of arrival is not the blowing of the wind, but the set of the sail”. How true, Jim Rohn.

I may never reach the mark in regards to making lemonade out of life’s lemons, but I will certainly do my best to make it count and I hope you do too.