May 8, 2020
Following Your Spidey Senses
When You Want To Be Helpful Pay It Forward
Connecting the dots while looking ahead, not backward.
I just read the beautiful story by Tim Maudlin about the Acronym he created to express his feeling about our home on Medium, aka ILLUMINATION. In case you missed it, here it is.
Reading it reminded me of our motto of Diversity, Synergy, Fusion, and Serendipity. That motto was instrumental when last month, I wrote a story about connecting the dots and the little experiment I conducted intending to Pay It Forward.
I took a random story I read and followed the trail from one story to the next by randomly picking one reader who clapped for the story. I then chose one of their stories to read and pulled a random clapper, and so on. I believe a couple of those writers joined Illumination, the community that believes in Pay it Forward.
The idea of connecting the dots was inspired by Steve Job’s convocation speech at Stanford, where he mentioned that you could only connect the dots looking backwards, and I thought, why not intentionally connect some dots and give the Universe a helping hand.
So this morning, I checked the fans who had clapped for Tim Maudlin’s story that I mentioned above and found this gem by Danielle Tantone. It is the featured story on her profile page.
Such a moving story about life’s gifts, of appreciation, and mourning the loss when life brings another offering in the form of cancer. It had me on the verge of tears while rooting for her honesty and bravery in sharing such a deeply personal story. My day and life are richer for having read that.
Peeking at the list of fans in Danielle’s story, I found this. Chris Sowers caught my attention. I was simply allowing my intuition to pick the writer as I scanned the list.
Chris weaves a hilarious account of being an introvert in these times of social upheaval. The rollercoaster ride of exuberance and frustration in dealing with the “new normal,” as it is called these days. He had me laughing hard because I am an introvert who can relate to it so well. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
So you know how this goes by now. Looking at his fans list, I spotted Lisa Wel, or I should say my intuition picked her. Again, I clicked on her featured story.
Lisa is a master storyteller, and she has this story of friendship, trust, and reliability among friends so perfectly weaved in and out of her life events that it keeps you glued to the screen. In the end, being there for each other and the love among friends is what it’s all about. And she has the perfect featured image for the story, too.
And that led me to Carrie Wynn, and the featured story on her profile page.
It’s a story about a brave woman’s life about adventure, work, ingenuity, determination, and standing up for herself to achieve success.
She talks about arriving in a new city with no job and no place to live, working for an a**hole of a boss, taking matters in her own hands, and networking. Connecting with the right people earned her the respect of her co-workers and upper management, and finally celebrating the Karmic Justice when the a-hole gets the boot.
Life is such a rich experience when you trust yourself and let your intuition guide you to where the yummy stuff is. And when you share all the deliciousness with others, it enriches them too. As we Pay It Forward, we spread the rich experiences around, the world gets richer and richer, and that’s what Diversity, Synergy, fusion, and Serendipity is all about.
As always, thank you for reading and responding.
More about me:
Rasheed Hooda is a published author and a regular contributor to ILLUMINATION, a writers’ community on Medium where writers support each other.
He is a self-proclaimed weirdo who lives a Freedom Lifestyle and writes about related topics — Travel (a top writer), Personal Growth, Freedom, and entrepreneurship. (Get the Newsletter)
“You can let others tell you what it means to be successful, or you can decide it for yourself.”
