Mantra Monday XIII: Lessons from Childhood Are Lessons for Life
Author: Joe Lizz
I am extraordinarily grateful for my mother.
Growing up, my dad worked every shift he could, every day of the week he could, so that my mother could stay home and raise me and my siblings.
She was, and still is, one of the most positive influences in my life. I can’t thank her enough for all that she sacrificed for me.
When I grew up, we didn’t have cell phones or social media. We didn’t own a laptop, or even a desktop computer (go ahead and google that, I’ll wait — #throwback) until I was in middle school.
We had to pick up the phone and call someone to talk to them or pick up a pen and paper to write them a letter, we spent time face-to-face with people without a screen connecting us.
When I was young, my mother taught me some very important lessons about how to treat and interact with other people. If you follow me on Instagram, they may seem familiar:
1. Kindness Counts
Kindness is free to give and priceless to receive.
Kindness doesn’t mean that you always agree with someone or that you don’t have arguments or moments where you are angry.
Kindness is about the way you treat other people in moments of frustration as well as happiness. It’s about taking that extra moment to think before speaking.
Often, the people who are the cruelest to us need our kindness toward them the most.
In a world that is now so vastly ruled by technology and screen time, it is very easy to forget the importance of kindness and the drastic impact it can have on others.
Online or on the computer, we don’t have to look in a person’s eyes when speaking to them so when we act unkind, we don’t see that effect our words have on them. We don’t see them fighting back tears, biting their tongue, becoming angry.
But just because we don’t see the ripples that our words and actions create doesn’t mean those ripples aren’t created.
Differing opinions are opportunities to grow and evolve, to learn from another human being who comes from a different place in life than we do. But to have these moments of learning and growth we must approach them with an open mind and kindness.
2. You Can Be Anything You Want in Life if You Put Your Mind To It
This may be (internally) the greatest lesson my mother ever taught me. She never put limitations on me because I was a female. She never told me “girls don’t do this or that.”
When I wanted to start my career in the emergency services as a firefighter at seventeen, she signed the parental waivers for me. When I wanted to go to college for engineering, she believed in me every step of the way. She never once questioned me, my abilities, my desires, or intentions — she simply supported me.
People aren’t meant to be placed into boxes or caged in. And they don’t have to fit some socially acceptable “mold” to be worthy or capable.
Stop perpetuating the idea that a woman can only be a model if she’s thin, only make it in the fire service if she’s masculine, or that a man can only be a good nurse if he’s sensitive and feminine.
3. It Doesn’t Matter What You Are in Life But Who You Are As a Person
I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it: a person’s worth is in their character, not in their career, or their appearance — not in anything but who they are at their core as a person.
Not a single one of us is born with more worth than anyone else. Someone on Instagram isn’t less worthy as another person because they have fewer followers. The woman checking you out at Walmart this morning isn’t less of a person because she works at Walmart.
Kindness, support, encouragement, respect. These are all such fundamental parts of being human. Don’t allow the ease of social media connections to dim your humanity.
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