Did you notice I didn’t post a napkin yesterday? It’s because I was busy doing last minute prep work for a presentation I gave at the first ever Social Media Tulsa Conference yesterday afternoon. I did however draw a ‘guest napkin’ while I was there and will post it and my reflections on the day tomorrow.
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But as for today, it’s the last day of Metaphor Week!
I have been living in Oklahoma almost 17 years now and I have seen a LOT of video footage of tornadoes. I have even seen in person any number of storms that were threatening to become one. Luckily I haven’t seen an actual tornado. The most amazing thing about them is how tall and thin they are. They have virtually no substance to them at all and they usually don’t last very long.
Happiness is much the same way. Much like a tornado, happiness can effect much beyond it’s immediate borders even if it is only in existence for a few moments. What a person is rubs off on others. If you are happy AND express it, then others see it, feel it, and might be pulled in by it to move towards ‘happy’ as well.
Be a happiness tornado for a moment or two today. See who you can pull in.
We sometimes are right to take a fence down. Fences of racism, sexism, fear, nationality, religion, etc. But other fences have dangerous things on the other side. Fences of safety, love, common sense, civility, and more. Those fences were built for reason. They were built to help, protect and nurture us individually and as a society.
If you want to see what happens when those fences aren’t secure, when they aren’t maintained, just look at three examples of the last week. Joe Wilson spouting off at President Obama during his speech, Serena Williams having a tirade against a line judge in a tennis match, and Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift during her moment at the VMA awards.
All three were probably taught at some point about civility and manners. But all three forgot that they have to maintain that fence, and they thought they would get farther by breaking the rules rather than abiding by them. None of them were protesting evil, none were trying to right an injustice. They were all filled with self and ego, thinking they were better and more worthy than the one they attacked. They, and the media society they live within, haven’t maintained their fence and they have an open path to the field next door. It is a field of meanness, of crassness, of hurt and pomposity. It is a field of celebrity at all costs, fame over substance, money over love. That fence should be restored and not torn down.
