Win. (Or whatever we’re supposed to use for the opposite of a ‘fail.’ I really like this.)
Something from a church bulletin has really stuck with me, so I thought I’d type it in here to share:
But another story surfaced in my memory—a story I heard from a commuter who uses a toll road daily about a phenomenon he had witnessed at the toll booths. Every morning, he said, there would be very short lines at five of the six toll booths, and a very long line at the sixth. Why would anyone join a long line, he wondered, when there were five much shorter lines available? The answer was the man inside that sixth toll booth. Without fail, he had a friendly, personal greeting for everyone who passed by his booth. “How are you doing today?” “How’s the family?” And even, in the case of my informant, the wholly unexpected inquiry: “What happened to your glasses?” My friend explained that even his family had not noticed that he had lost his glasses, but this stranger in the toll booth not only noticed, but expressed his concern. Such was the power of this “one” that harassed drivers would line up, adding five or ten minutes to their commute, simply to be refreshed by this man’s friendly words and authetic kindness. It is easy, it appears, for just one person to bring springs of new life into a world that routine stress has rendered so toxic. (reprinted from America:The National Catholic Weekly, July 6, 2009, vol 201 No.101)
The power of one really is remarkable. You are probably the toll booth driver for someone today and you don’t even realize it.
