A CHALLENGE

If you are never scared, embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take chances.

- Julia Soul

The human contribution is the essential ingredient. It is only in the giving of oneself to others that we truly live.

-- Ethel Percy Andrus

There are people who make things happen, those who watch what happens, and those who wonder what happened.

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I must say that there are those who will be first to say I am not the easiest person to get along with.  I challenge them to walk in my shoes.  I feel no great need to defend myself or spend time with lengthy explanations.  Suffice it to say, I have not gotten where I am today by standing around and watching the grass grow or being a follower.  And yes, I expect a great deal of people. Because people have a great deal to offer. Those suffering, struggling, strangling, and suffocating will be the first to tell you they could use help. When some stand idly by and simply observe and tell me they don't have time or that I push them too hard, it is difficult. This challenges me to heights and places I am unaccustomed to, and frankly don't understand.

Truth be known, had I not had a few pushes once in a while, I am certain I could not have achieved the tiniest particle of what I have.  Sometimes we stumble over the truth, and realize we should be doing something, but then hurry off as if it isn't really all that important. Goodness knows we are all so terribly busy with our own stuff, we have little time for fulfilling our purpose on this earth. (That doing good for others.) We have things to do, things to buy, things to keep up with the Jones', and things to occupy what little free time we have left.

Oscar Hammerstein said, "Love in the heart wasn't put there to stay; love isn't love 'til you give it away."  Love for our fellow man, love of family, love of country, love of strangers suffering, love of our warriors in harm's way, or a baby bird in the street or a stray unloved dog or cat. Our joy isn't found in things, it is in us! Just as this thing called love is in us.

A quote from Howard Aiken hit me in the face this morning. "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.  If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." Love it, love it! 

Train a Dog Save a Warrior came about from one comment made by a soldier in a late night phone call to me.  He simply said, "I need help."  How many of us need help?  No, not with yard work or homework or housework.  I mean help.  A deep down inside need that you can't fix, find an answer for, and  one that  is eating you alive.  Bet more of you than are willing to admit.  Yes, we all need help.  And as they say, 'Good help is hard to find."

Do you answer the call when someone needs help?  Someone you don't know and have never seen before and perhaps will never see again.  Do you find the need to tell everyone what a good person you are and how much good you do or that you are too busy to help?  Or do you get in the trenches and shovel?  

So moral of the story is, yes, I challenge people.  I challenge them to be the best they can be, to help others in need, to realize that it is okay to set aside some of their 'stuff' for the greater good, to reach out to this world and let it know they are in it, and  help them become aware that they are needed on a plane much larger than they could ever imagine. 

Bottom line is if people don't like me for this, that is fine.  I don't care.  In the scope of things it is infinitesimal.

I ask for nothing more of others than they would ask for themselves if they were in trouble, in grief, in pain, in chaos, in adversity.  We all need someone to lean on, to fall on, to pick us up, to love us, to meet us halfway, to challenge us, to hold onto us when we don't think we can do it anymore.

I challenge you to be this kind of person.

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"TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE...FOR IF THEY FALL, ONE WILL LIFT UP THE OTHER."

The Book of Ecclesiastes