7 & 7: Others vs. Self

REFLECTION:

In each person’s life, come others who pave the way. Some are protectors, nurturers, cherishers. Others are role models, examples through whom we see not only our future selves, but also understand our fit. It’s a delicate balance to value yourself enough, believe in your goodness and potential, without becoming destructively self-centered. Go too far either way and you’re in trouble. Reaching outside yourself in response to others needs, not only is service, but learning. As we connect to others needs, we discover and fill our own. Both are critically important – the reaching out so that others might have a chance to reach their full potential – and the pulling back to focus on self to reach your full potential. Your self-growth allows for future greater independence and progressively less need for others’ daily assistance. Self-sufficiency grows. Over time and beyond, you move from modeling to being a model yourself, as your shadow lengthens and strengthens, as you become the other to someone’s future self.

MUSES:

No him, no me.
Dizzie Gillespie of Louis Armstrong

There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first. When you learn to live for others, they will live for you.
Paramahansa Yogananda

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.
Albert Camus

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
John. F. Kennedy

The environment is everything that isn’t me.
Albert Einstein

Don’t ask of your friends what you yourself can do.
Quintus Ennius

An institution is the lengthening shadow of one man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson