Lifting One Another Doesn't Have To Feel So Heavy

I had a virtual meeting with my friend Wayne recently. In the meeting, Wayne told me about an encouraging note he'd recently received from our mutual friend Jen. While telling me about it, he got up from his chair and pointed the camera he was using for our meeting at the note pinned on his wall.

There were a couple of pictures - and this note.

I could not make out the words, but I could tell it wasn't long - a few short sentences at most. Yet, Wayne's emotions - his voice cracking and tears glazing over his eyes - made me feel like he was sharing thoughts on a beautiful novel he'd recently read.

I had coffee with our friend Jen yesterday. I told her how much her note meant to Wayne. She was caught off guard by this. She told me, "It wasn't a long note at all. I was simply thanking him for doing such great work on a project we did together, and how much it meant to me."

As I was talking to her, I wondered how many people underestimate the power we have to lift up another human being by seeing as normal acts of love that are not so normal at all.

How often, I wonder, do we not know how much we have lifted another human being because we are not entirely aware of how much that human needed to be lifted.

I think we have no idea sometimes how powerful it can be for the unseen to feel seen. For the undervalued to feel valued. For the forgotten to feel remembered.

And don't we all have those days in our lives? Those days of feeling:

Unseen.

Undervalued.

Forgotten.

I watch and listen and read as we banter about solutions for all the giant problems currently overwhelming our world. And yet, in some worlds, the solution is quite simple.

It's two or three sentences.

Or maybe even two or three words.

Thank you.

I appreciate you.

Your work is important.

The world needs lifted. But maybe the lift isn't as heavy as it seems.