Dad often said, “It’s not just about impacting lives. It’s about how you impact them. That’s a choice you have to make every day, kiddo.”
There is an obscure gothic romance novel I read once that told the story of two brothers, each born of the same impoverished family. While gothic romance novels usually serve the purpose of providing a few hours of fluff reading (and this is why I like them now and then), this particular one offered a more profound lesson for me. Two brothers from the same impoverished circumstances gain tremendous wealth in their later years. One hoards his wealth and uses it to punish everyone he believed to ever have wronged him. The other uses his wealth to lift up and benefit those less fortunate. (And there’s a love triangle in there, of course – or it would be a gothic romance!)
Few gothic romances end well. In fact, many end with an anguished someone throwing themselves off a jagged cliff! This one ended, as one would expect, with the death of both brothers. The first brother dies wretched and alone, the latter dies comfortably – surrounded by loving family and friends who determine to carry on his legacy of helping others.
The few hours of fluff-reading invested in this novel, and the deeper lesson it offered have stayed with me all these years. It reminded me of The Colonel’s primary belief that how we impact people is a choice. Whether you are in a support position, leadership, or customer service, how you influence people, whether positively or negatively, is a daily choice. Especially if you are in a public or quasi-public position such as clergy, entertainment, or politics, how you impact people must be a discipline. If your life were written into a novel, which brother would history cast you as? Are you, by your actions and with your words, hoarding, controlling, demeaning, or dismissive? Or are you supporting, empowering, and encouraging others to believe in themselves?
It’s a daily choice.
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