Life Lesson #7 - Leave it Better Than You Found it

In this weeks podcast, you will hear excerpts from the hosts' unpublished retro-historical memoir, "Life Lessons of an Ordinary Woman".  You will be welcomed into a community of Ordinarily Beautiful People, who want to start their day and their week off with a few smiles and some inspiration.

In this episode:

• You will hear how the host, at eight years old. learned how and why it is important to leave things, and people, better than you find them.
• You will also hear how the Girl Scouts and Brownies, Virgina Slims cigarettes, square dancing, being a "tattle tail" and finding a dead Bull Frog; changed the life and the perspective a little blonde haired girl in 1978 in positive and far-reaching ways.
• You will learn about the "ripple effect" and be encouraged to think about what you do to create positive ones in your life and be inspired to start a new one.
• You will be invited to like, follow and to share this podcast with others who you think might want to become a part of this amazing community of listeners.  

email: lifelessons.ordinarywoman@gmail.com

Facebook page: Life Lessons of an Ordinary Woman Podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning this morning, my ordinarily beautiful friends. Hope you had a great week and that your 4th of July was a fun, safe, yummy kind of day. I want to thank you for your responses to my Last Life Lesson, The Good Listener Award. It's always great to hear how the lessons landed for all of you. Many of you wrote in to share how and when you felt that you became a good listener. Several of you shared that you learned to be a good listener when you became a parent, that you wanted your own children to know that what they had to say was important. Something that you shared you did not feel from your own parents growing up. Others wrote in to say that they feel that they listen so much that they often feel tired, kind of exhausted or drained from listening. It's important to remember that listening does not mean you have to have a solution for others. Listening doesn't have to equal action. Listening is simply the act of giving your full attention to another person, just being there for them when they need to talk. That gift of listening to others when they need it most helps them in ways we may never know, but without knowing it, you may have just turned their bad day into a great one, helped reconnect them with their power, and helped them remember that there is still some good in the world. In preparing for this episode and based on your feedback and stories, I wanted to share this next life lesson about leaving things and people better than you find them. I read a quote that I really liked that fits nicely with this life lesson. It's penned by Simon Alexander. He's a Swedish singer-songwriter who's known best for his folk songs. He says, Everywhere you go you leave a mark. Your presence changes environments, whether you intend it to or not. You can improve environments that you walk into, or you can drain them. You can leave people feeling being seen, or you can leave them feeling smaller. Most people underestimate this, but influence lives in the small things. Holding the door for the person behind you, saying thank you to the person who helped you, gifting the person in front of you with your undivided attention. You don't have to change the world. You just have to be intentional about how you show up, because kindness compounds, and the energy you bring has a way of echoing long after you've gone. So make it a habit to leave places and people better than you found them. I really liked that. So this life lesson, Leave It Better Than You Found It, is how I, at eight years old, learned to be gentler and more appreciative of the people and places around me. So here it goes. Life lesson number seven from my unpublished retro historical memoir, Life Lessons of an Ordinary Woman. It's called Leave It Better Than You Found It. I wasn't old enough to join the Girl Scouts when I first saw a girl in a pretty green dress with braids woven tightly and tied at the bottom with green silk ribbons in her hair. She was wearing a polyester shoulder sash draped over her chest with five colorful patches sewed onto it. She was walking tall through the neighborhood park with four more girls that dressed just like her. They were gathered in the park singing songs with the tall blonde woman who seemed to be about my mom's age. She was wearing a similar green dress, but she, unlike them, had a lot of interesting patches on her shoulder sash. I was there with my sister playing on the swings and waiting to hear the loud bell chime from our back porch, a bell that my mom would ring loudly to call us home for dinner. I was pointing at the girls when I asked my sister, What do you think that's about? I did not stop pumping my feet as I was swinging high trying to make the swing set legs lift off the ground. Who cares, my sister said, always sounding annoyed by my many questions. I don't know, I kinda do, was my reply. But they're wearing dresses, my sister said. You hate dresses. I think she thought that would be the end of the discussion, because it was true. Trying to get me to wear a dress for any occasion was like trying to get the toothpaste to go back into the tube that once held it so tightly. I know, I said, but it looks like they're having fun. I watched them for a while longer, and after they got done singing songs, they all got up and marched in formation into the woods that lined the park. They hadn't emerged yet when we heard the dinner bell ring. At school the next day I saw the same girl from the park, but she wasn't wearing her green dress. I could tell it was her, however, from the way her hair was braided, with the green ribbons tying the ends. Hey, I shouted to her as we all headed out to recess. She stopped and looked around. Over here, I said. She came skipping towards me. Hi, she said, what's your name? I told her my name and then asked her about the green dress and the songs. She told me she was in the Girl Scouts, and they did lots of fun things and earned badges whenever they learned a new skill. I have five badges so far, she said proudly. I was impressed and excited. My excitement waned, however, when she told me you had to be in the fourth grade to join. But she said you can be a brownie now. I laughed at her when she said that. I thought she was joking and making fun of me. No, it's a real thing, she went on. Brownies are the step before becoming a Girl Scout, but they have fun too. I thought about it for the rest of the day and was determined to bring this up to my parents at dinner time. I wanted to be around other girls doing fun things, and especially around a woman who was tall and seemed so smart and could teach me songs and sing with me. I knew I couldn't say that part to my parents, however, it would especially hurt my mom's feelings, since she could not sing with me after having her stroke when I was five. After a short discussion around the dinner table, my parents said I could join. They bought me my brown polyester dress, and although it was itchy and I hated it, I wore it proudly to my first meeting. Our leader was a local mom who had volunteered to lead our troop. She wasn't a very active woman and mainly gave us badges for cleaning her house and doing her yard work. But we appreciated that she always had good snacks, and she had a laugh that made us all laugh right along with her. We're going camping next week, our troop leader announced one day during our weekly meeting. We all wiggled around with joy at the idea of going away for the weekend, away from our parents and older siblings, and we were excited about getting to sleep in the woods. The ride to the campsite was bumpy and smoky. Our leader enjoyed smoking her Virginia Slim cigarettes, and adult smoking in the car with kids in the back seat in the 70s and 80s was common. The smoke-filled car and burnt cigarette ashes flying around the back seat were mere annoyances. Nothing dampened our mood on our way to our first campout. When we pulled up to what would be our home away from home, we took a good look around. The campsite was not like anything we'd seen on TV or in the movies or in magazines. The cabin, the only structure on the property, seemed to tilt a little to one side. Its pathways were covered by overgrown bushes, and shrubs of all sizes covered the dirty windows. We all gave a concerned look to one another but still had high hopes for a fun getaway. As we were unpacking our things, our troop leader had a sit down in front of the fireplace in the living room. I understand this place might not look like much, she said, but it's still our responsibility to leave it better than we found it. We all nodded our heads in agreement. We weren't really sure what we could do to make it better, but as brownies we would do our best to try. We spent the weekend washing windows, mopping floors, and pulling weeds. During one impromptu hike around the lake we found a dead bullfrog. We found an old straw in one of the girls' pockets, and with much effort but no success, we tried to revive the lifeless, large, olive green frog using the CPR skills we learned in a module a few weeks prior. We weren't able to revive him, but we did give him a proper burial. As we sang Amazing Grace, we heard the long bellows of his frog family saying their goodbyes to him as we placed a makeshift popsicle stick cross to mark his final resting place near a red flowering bush. We walked away holding hands with one another. It was my first pet burial as a kid. It was just a frog, I told myself as I walked away, but it still hit me hard. During our weekend getaway, we did make some fun, lasting memories. We learned songs like Baby Bumblebee, The More We Get Together, and She'll Be Comin' Around the Mountain. We sat around a campfire and I made my first s'more. As we drove away to head back home, I looked out the rear window. The cabin definitely was still not something you'd ever see in a magazine or in an article that was written about the glamours of camping. It was, however, better looking than when we found it, and I was proud of us and of that, and was even more proud when my mom sewed my first patch, the Good Works Patch, onto my sash. Our troop leader ended up retiring after a year of troop leading service, but that was okay by me. I'd found a new interest by then in square dancing. I'd watched my aunt dance at a local fair over the summer and was entranced by the fitted tops and wide flowy skirts and petticoats that the women wore and the way they twirled and dosy doughed around as they danced. My participation in the Snoopy Swinger square dancing group was short-lived. I didn't last more than a couple of months. My exit from that group activity came at the strong suggestion to my parents from the leader and had much to do with my horse play and poorly timed pranks on the other dancers during dance practices. My new pretty blue square dancing dress and petticoat were hung in my closet next to my polyester brown dress and sash with one patch before Christmas of that year. But the scout's motto always stayed with me, the guidance to always be ready to help and serve others, and to always, and most importantly, leave something better than you found it. As in the quote shared at the beginning of this podcast, I've learned that it's important to not only leave something, a place, better than you found it, but it's important to leave people better too. Our brownie troop leader shared a similar sentiment during that camping trip about how kindness to others can be contagious. She said that one act, kind gesture, or kind gesture can lead to another and so on. She said that the momentum of kind acts can be far reaching. One kind act that starts another, she called it a ripple effect. We hear about those stories today when people post about paying it forward in a coffee line or grocery store. When one person pays for the person behind them in line, and it creates a chain reaction of gifting and kindness, a common day, fun example of a ripple effect. There are several practical personal ways to leave people better than you find them. Listening without judgment is one. As we all know, it's often scary to talk to people about our feelings or about our challenging life situations because we often feel like they'll judge us if we do. But it's important to try because often our stories, when we share them, are our strength. Our resiliency in life, our ability to overcome things that could have crippled us. When we share about these tough things, it often helps other people feel similarities and whisper me too. And when that happens, they become braver and more willing to share their own stories without fear of judgment. Listening to other people with earnest compassion and understanding, not judgment, allows others to feel safe when talking. And there is no better gift to give someone than that than that. Another way to leave people better than you find them is to give them genuine compliments. My neighbor told me once when I was being what we called a tattletale that it's better to catch people being good than bad. I was telling her about a neighbor boy who was bragging about something bad that he had done when she interrupted me and said, Okay, Kim, but why don't you try and catch him doing something good and then tell me and him about that? She went on to say that people appreciate being noticed for the good that they do, and that even the troublemakers do some good every day. She said that it was important to notice those things too. I'd never thought about that before. The first time I saw him doing something nice for another neighborhood kid, I told him that I noticed and said to him, That was nice of you. He looked confused at first, but then he smiled at me and said thanks. That reaction gave me pause. I liked how it made me feel and I try and do that daily. I try and find something genuinely positive to say about another person, to catch them being good, and then I make sure and tell them. All in the hope that as Simon Alexander said in his quote, that genuine kindness compounds. I'm so appreciative of your continued support of me as I continue to do these podcasts. I hope they start your day or your week off with a little smile and positivity as I share the lessons I've learned over my life given to me by those ordinary people who didn't have to take the time they did with me to inspire me to do more, be more, and try harder in life. I know that I'm really enjoying this experience and thoroughly enjoy reading your feedback and personal triumph stories that you share with me following each episode. Please continue sending those in by clicking on the fan mail button on these hosting sites or emailing me at lifelessons.ordinarywoman at gmail.com. I'd love to hear where or with who you share your positivity and how you leave things or people better than you find them. Also, please like, follow, and share this podcast with others, people that you'd like to invite to join our amazing community of ordinarily beautiful people. Until next week, always remember that I love you and your presence is a present to those around you.