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A Rose To The Living: There Is No Better Time Than The Present For Compassion
A long while back I listened to a speech by Lucille Johnson that stuck with me. One of her quotes that stood out and comes to my mind often is “A rose to the living is more sumptuous than a wreath to the dead.” She explained how she had been to a conference and was staying in a hotel in Salt Lake City. She had been given a bouquet of roses to wish her luck on her speeches she would be delivering.
One evening, as she was leaving her hotel room for one of her meetings, she saw the housekeeper in the hallway and quickly grabbed a rose. She approached the woman, who she described as older, weather-worn, and clearly a hard-worker. She handed the woman the rose and thanked her for the great job that she does in tidying up the rooms. She said, it is very obvious that you care about the work you do and that she wanted the housekeeper to know it did not go unnoticed.
Upon hearing the kind words and receiving the rose, the housekeeper burst into tears. Lucille gave her a hug and hoped she hadn’t offended her. The older lady then said, “Thank you for your kind words. We work hard behind the scenes and often do not get much positive feedback. This is the first time that someone has given me a flower.”
The ladies hugged and chatted a bit back and forth and then Lucille had to leave for her engagement.
The experience stuck with her. The thought occurred to her that “some people go through their entire lives and never receive a flower. They never receive a corsage, let alone a bouquet. They may never be gifted a bloom until their funerals. A rose to the living is more sumptuous than a wreath to the dead.”
Lucille also talked about how unkind words, words of criticism, and jabs can stick with us. She once went to try on dress shoes at a store and someone she thought was her friend said, “Oh Lucille, you should never wear sling-back shoes, your feet do not look good in them.” From that point on, whenever she was shopping for shoes she would think, “I better be mindful of what shoes I pick because I do not have nice feet and they will not look good in most shoes.” She said it wasn’t until she was shopping with her own daughters that she realized her feet were as normal as anyone else’s. Her daughters asked why she refused to wear certain styles of shoes and after she explained, they reassured her that her feet looked like every other woman’s foot. She said, “My how the unkind word can write itself on our soul.” We must be mindful of the darts we throw at others and also not take someone else’s criticism immediately as truth. Things others say to us often tell us more about them than they do about ourselves.
She went on to talk about how we all need to do a better job of lifting each other up and giving other people praise when it enters our minds. How sad is the life that only receives praise once it has passed!
Put Your Energy Into Helping Others
We live in a busy and chaotic world. A world that is full of stresses and threatens to isolate us and keep us driven by our own egos and goals. How often do we come up for air and notice those people around us, let alone tell them how we feel?
One of the best ways to combat our own stresses and hardships is to put some of our energy towards helping others. Whether it be in service or just a kind word, our well-being and mental health improves. Simply sending a thoughtful postcard or text to someone we have been meaning to reach out to can help brighten their day, and in turn brighten our own. As cheesy as it may sound, the best way to feel better about ourselves is to think less about ourselves and more about how we can improve the world around us. This in turn makes our own world bloom.
How often do we see someone wearing something nice and keep our compliments to ourselves? The unsaid compliment does nobody any good. A wreath on your grave will mean much less to you than a simple rose given today.
How are you making people feel?
For a moment, think about those people in your life who you adore. One of the key reasons that you adore them is how they make you feel. They likely reach out to you and make you feel like you are a priority or not forgotten. They probably ask you how you are doing and genuinely listen. The way we feel about someone is the way they make us feel. Maya Angelou famously said “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
In contrast, the way other people feel about you is also tied to how you make them feel. Are you putting in the effort to stay connected with the people that are important to you? Life can be a never ending parade of tasks and things to deal with, which, if allowed, can eat up all of our energy and time. Are you taking the time to nourish your relationships and friendships? Are you taking a few minutes to enrich the lives of strangers?
We are good at seeing problems in the world and things that make life dissatisfying. Are we also taking the time to put even a small bit of positive energy into that world?
When I feel myself getting into a funk, I try to think of ways that I can give back to the world. One thing I have done in the past is to put together kits for the homeless. Rather than giving money from my car, I try to give a small bag with a pair of socks, a small non-perishable meal, a toothbrush with toothpaste, some candy and a used book that someone might enjoy. Will this kit alter their lives and solve their problems? Nope, but it will be a bright spot for many that day. It will be a reminder that someone took the time to think about them and sometimes that is just what we need, no matter our status in life.
Even the richest people in the world can be lonely and struggling. We humans are social creatures. We crave human interactions and positive moments; yes, even you introverts! Those positive interactions go a long way in helping us to maintain our mental and physical health. Our bodies run off of energy and chemicals. The more “happy chemicals” from happy moments that we receive, the better our bodies respond to stress and life’s challenges.
