What the World Needs Now
I’m scared.
I’m scared because I feel inadequate to the job I’ve taken on in writing and publishing a book. I’m scared even though I’ve spent the last several years of my life transforming myself from a shy and retiring introvert to one who can go first in offering a greeting to a stranger and not take it as a personal failure if she doesn’t get a response.
I’m scared because the book manuscript I’ve been delaying delivering to the printer isn’t perfect, and not everyone is going to like it. Some will ignore or dismiss it. Some will leave critical reviews on Amazon or Goodreads.
Yet, I have to push the publish button because I’ve made a contract with the universe to complete this late-life mission.
So how about you, Kind Soul? What contract have you made with the universe? Is there something you have to offer that you’ve been withholding? It doesn’t have to be on the scale of writing and publishing a book. It doesn’t have to mean a career change or starting a movement (although it might).
What the world needs now are people who are present to its suffering from a pandemic of “me-ness.” People who are willing to step out and take action that moves the world toward “we-ness.” And stepping out begins with small acts of kindness in everyday situations, like those I suggest in Smiling at Strangers and the eBook preview “10 Ways to Help Heal the World.”
We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to save the world alone. We just have to do our part and provide what’s needed moment by moment, wherever we find ourselves.
As for me, my immediate task is to push that publish button.
“Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness.
Know how to give without hesitation,
how to lose without regret,
how to acquire without meanness.”