Welcome to the second Sunday of Moving Difference Year 3!
The first week and change has blown by and honestly the amount of hours and emails are beyond amazing… it is in the mind-blowing range….
The thing is though, we need to talk about something serious on this Sunday Thought – we need to address keeping the motivation going for the rest of the summer…
Sure a great first week, but there are 11 other weeks of summer ahead – so in that spirit today’s quote is something for that…
Here at MDY3, we are attempting to do something different. We are asking people to be guest bloggers and tell the world what MDY3 means to them – the everybody everyday people of the world. Just the words of a person, no pictures, photos or other distractions. A view from mind to you.
Today’s guest blogger is from Carrie W. of Texas and besides being a great friend & all round funny person, she is, as you will read, extremely kind.
Enjoy!
Experience A Moving Difference
By: Carrie W.
Whether by design or by happenstance, I am an extreme introvert. At first glance, it seems to be difficult to make a difference in people’s lives with that kind of hard wiring, especially when it appears the only viable way to serve is through big, organized service projects, which of course hold little or no appeal to me. I have found, however, there are many other ways to touch the lives of those I come in contact with as I go through the daily grind of life.
I like to think of it as making a moving difference. As I move through the minutes and hours of each day I notice people—co-workers and clients at work, folks in the grocery store or mall, or a solitary man standing on the corner at a traffic light holding a sign asking for help. What I’ve learned to do is go beyond noticing into the realm of actually seeing them. I’m not talking about seeing them with judging eyes; it’s seeing them as real people living their lives as best they can in that moment. It’s realizing there is a reason for every one of their actions or lack thereof.
As an example, let’s say I stop at the grocery store on a Friday evening after work. I need to pick up some fresh vegetables for supper. I’m tired, ready for the weekend. Blocking the tomatoes is a frazzled woman with three children, one of whom is having a meltdown; the other two are slugging each other in the back of the cart. I notice.
In order to actually see, I must realize that woman is at least as tired as I am, especially if she’s worked all day, picked up tired children at daycare, and after shopping must go home and cook, do dishes, and give baths before she sits down to relax. How I choose to respond in that moment can make a difference in that woman’s life.
I could show impatience and reach over her. I could ask her to move her cart so I can get some tomatoes. Or I can make eye contact and smile at her. If I smile, will I know I’ve made a difference? No, though I know a kind patient smile from a stranger has changed many a day’s trajectory in my life. As a person who makes a moving difference, I choose to smile at the woman.
Sometimes seeing involves hearing, and speaking. For example, oftentimes cashiers at the convenience store strike up a conversation. Usually it’s about my purchase, but sometimes, they pull back a curtain and let me see into their life. They might say something about being tired, or that their little boy is home sick and they wish they were home with him. What a difference a kind word offered to them can make. Not only have they been seen, they’ve also been heard. Cashiers, trash collectors, those who deliver the mail, meter readers, and so many others are often invisible and silent to us. We don’t think about them, especially if they are working on a holiday. It costs me next to nothing to thank them for working on Thanksgiving or Christmas, stick a thank you note in the mailbox, or set out ice cold bottled water at the curb on trash days during the summer, but when I see their faces light up and they flash me a big smile, I know I’ve just made a difference.
More obvious ways to make a tangible difference is to purposely plan to do so. I plan to give food to the homeless by keeping a bag of canned goods, personal hygiene items, and such in my car. That way, when I stop at a traffic light where a homeless person is standing, I can hand them something through the window. I don’t know whether that person needs food or a toothbrush, but I give them something. I see them. I care. I try to help.
Most of the time, though, my acts of kindness are not so purposeful, except that I purpose to smile at the people I see. I purpose to offer a kind word of encouragement instead of harsh or impatient ones. I purpose to be gracious, to say thank you (and mean it). I purpose to see people as individuals who need encouragement as much as I do rather than imposing a societal label on them, like handicapped or homeless.
Of course, most of the time I never know if the little things I do actually make much of a difference in someone’s life. That’s not the point. That I do it is the point. Everyone I meet deals with some type of stress—that’s life. Every one has a full plate, a to-do list that never ends, illness, or financial problems. Living a life of service means I respond, person to person, often not doing anything but sharing a smile, a word, or a helpful act. Service of this sort costs little to no money, and only small moments of my time.
The next time you’re out and about, purpose to smile more, complain less, open your eyes and really see, and be a moving difference—what a wonderful way to embrace your day.
My, my – it has been busy – and there has been some technical humps too!
So the desktop’s wifi crashed officially on Saturday, and with that meant everything that was anything on the computer was being done on my phone – yep – the small screen blues – but hey all is well that ends well – Sunday was spent in part buying a new wifi card and the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out how to install it…. and then install the software and drivers…. ah… life is a challenge…
Got the wifi back on Sunday evening to help out the MDY3 staff with over 145k of emails that had come in over the last three days…
Then Monday – it rained and that meant the power decided to quit for the afternoon and be sketchy the rest of the evening so back to the small screen blues and tons of phone interviews instead of Skype calls. But we patch it thru and we do what we got to do with what we have at the time….. and that leads us to right now…..
It is 1:25am and I am still going thru all your report emails and it is awesome. Sure, the wifi is working and sure, the power is on, but it is all of the cool stories and all of you that rocks right now….
We estimate that we are over 100,000 hours for the first weekend on MDY3, we will know better come Saturday as we are doing a weekly report of the hours….. yet 100k in hours is awesome….. and we got the rest of the summer to enjoy and do this amazing project….no matter what life throws at us….
I keep thinking one thing in my mind – when life gets all strange and crazy…. it is this song HERE
See you tomorrow….. and remember it’s all right.
The first Sunday of an amazing summer is here!
Time to go old school – very old school with a quote from Socrates!
An unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates
Have some fun on the first Sunday of summer and remember you are amazing people!!
At midnight sharp begins MDY3
And if you have not started – well start!!!
To kick things off, listen to the very talented Scottish Rocker Maggie Bell singing After Midnight….
And with reason, I will actually be up at midnight my time and talking over the airwaves in Scotland – Edinburgh to be exact…. (I will post the link to the radio station on Twitter!)
See Moving Difference is over there as well, there are a bunch of people (last number was 2000+) that are kicking off Moving Difference by an entire day of volunteering for various charities….
and I hear that they have a pile of questions, laughs and stories to tell me and everybody listening…. it should be a great time….
What is happening after that you ask, well, depending on the time, I am going for a little 8 mile walk and then the MDY3 staff takes over and everybody is out and about in several different states helping at a food bank, pet shelter, homeless youth safe place and a children’s hospital – until roughly 5pm and then we are going to drop in on some people that inspire us too with some cookies and cards- either nursing home or veterans homes or the hospital before going home to see all the emails about what you lovely people did on the first day of MDY3!!
It is only fitting that the first day of MDY3 is a 24 hour day for me, I wouldn’t have it any other way…. 🙂
Until the clock strikes, midnight, – be good to yourself….
Morning light brings many things into view.
Mostly, that I want food.
My adventures in the world of Moving Difference, has lead me to speak at several civic groups, pick up trash with youth groups, drive tons of miles, receive a lot of emails and volunteering at so many places across the state and now the country, well – it is hard not to want breakfast because the rest of the day is going to be busy.
This is my road not taken. I am not a morning person. In fact, mornings are for people that refuse to stay up overnight and properly greet the dawn with sneers. Okay it isn’t that bad, but it is bad. And no, coffee doesn’t work. And no, I don’t make everybody else suffer because I don’t like mornings.
In fact many people don’t even know this about me. I truly make an effort not to refuse doing something at 6 in the morning and be ugly about it.
So I am not the “bubbly change the world” person but I am present, briefly smiling and WANT FOOD.
Since the start of Moving Difference last June, I have done more mornings before 6am than I have done in the last five years alone.
I have discovered that if you don’t get breakfast when you wake up that early then your entire day is going down hill fast and before noon…..
I have also discovered that an orange cut in half and the guts eaten make a great cooking bowl for over-easy eggs and ready-to-bake cinnamon rolls. AND a banana with the ends cut off and grilled in peel makes a tasty treat with the frosting packet from the cinnamon rolls!!
Not bad for a healthy breakfast on the road and certainly an adventure to make when half-wake!!
My road not taken of early mornings have lead me to places and people that are beyond beauty, they are life-changing. So I will take this road not taken for a bit more and see where it ends before I wiggle back into the night schedule and remember the mornings of campfire eggs…..
So what is your road not taken?
Think about it…
You are part of Moving Difference, it is something that is bigger than yourself.
You are a drop of water of a huge wave of giving forward to our communities.
You are taking one hour a week and you are making a difference while another person is doing the same thing in a different part of the world or maybe across the street.
It is all about the “you” in this world.
It is pretty amazing when you stop and think about it.
The last few weeks of the Moving Difference project, I am thrilled and saddened.
Moving Difference has set out and accomplished what it was to do and then some. It has been a long hot summer and it is marked with wonderful amazing people doing awesome things in their communities hour by hour of giving their time. That is the thrilling part.
The sad part is that it is coming to an end. The great summer of Moving Difference is fading into a memory or a distant thought. And in some ways that is good too. When we all watch that sunset on September 21, 2012 marking the end of Moving Difference and the end of summer, we will also all be marking ourselves as achievements of people that cared and actually stepped forward to be a difference, humans that made a decision to give their time to things that moved their hearts and minds.
As we head together to the final summer sunset and the closing scenes of Moving Difference for this year, I asked that you email us your Moving Difference hours as soon as possible so we can get the count in and going before the official end on September 21.
I am still very proud of each of you, still working as hard as we did in the beginning when this project started, and still in amazement everyday about how big Moving Difference is and how wonderful people are.
You being you is the thing that reminds me everyday that despite the crazy world that we all live in, a few good things remain.
Peace,
Jeny
By the light of the crickets, I write this entry to you.
I am so proud of Moving Difference, its vision was a 1000 hours over a summer, we did 5700+ the first three weeks.
After a few hours here tonight, I can tell you the number has gone up.
Moving Difference is now 6421 hours completed as a Moving Difference.
There are still a few hundred emails to open but we will get there and we will get them logged.
I wanted to share one email with you this early morning though. It is what this project is all about. I have tucked it below for your reading. I just want to say this about life, once you think you have seen it all, think again.
This world is a wonderful place.
The email:
“Dear Jeny,
The Moving Difference fever struck our house this week! I am reporting our total family hours for the week as 26 and 26 soccer balls donated to Orphans of War Campaign. We encouraged our children to join us in a few activities and for every hour they did, we told them we would purchase a soccer ball for charity. Jake and Stacy really thought it was cool, and we went to Academy last night to get the soccer balls. The kids were so excited they explained what they did to the clerk, who called the manager who give us the soccer balls at a discount. Then informed our children that for the rest of the summer, every hour they did on the Moving Difference project, he would purchased the soccer balls for them to ship to the charity. Needless to say our house is a buzz for next week, the kids have planned themselves into 40 hours!! I am sure that you will have a few more folks helping out in the days ahead – the kids are telling everybody!!
Thank you for this wonderful summer family project. ”
Pretty cool huh?
Today is a big day for Moving Difference, today it is a week old!!!
It has been amazingly fast week!
I crunched some fun numbers to share with you all about the first week.
Here it goes –
Emails received 18,685 – Emails replied 18,542
Pints of blood donated across the nation – 348
Hours spent picking up trash – 249
Hours spent working in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter – 288
And here is the best number of all –
1148 hours – the total number of hours that Moving Difference has completed across the world in its first week.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
The world might seem upside down but here we are, a Moving Difference, a week old, over a 1000 hours completed and the rest of the hot summer to go – time to redefine ourselves to bigger dreams!!!
Moving Difference is now a goal of 10,000 hours by the end of the summer. One hour at a time getting out, moving and making a difference.
We can do this!!
We did a 1000 hours already!! By September 21, 10k in hours making a Moving Difference is going to be easy!! And that sunset on September 21 is going to be AMAZING!!
So come on – Join in! Grab a friend and have a great summer!!
By all counts, Moving Difference is a working success. It is less than a week old, it is steady and strong and making the impact on the world.
I have read a lot of emails over the last week, thousands actually. Every one excited to share, wanting to do something, or reporting what they have done. Each email is special and unique. From the guy that wrote to proudly report that he didn’t pass out when giving blood to the young woman in the different country asking if it was okay to do a Moving Difference inTurkeywith her friends. Amazing emails, simple and beautiful.
To those of you still getting out there to do the Moving Difference or having a hard time selecting what to do, I firmly believe that you already know it in your heart.
Like Moving Difference for me, I really never thought “Hey I am going to put together Moving Difference and change the world.” What I thought was “Hey I am going to put together Moving Difference and do something besides complain about yet another hot ugly summer.”
Being a bit selfish in my thinking now looking back but I never thought it on such a huge scale that Moving Difference has grow to.
Honestly I am glad that I didn’t think of it to the huge scale, because I probably won’t have done it. Hey! I am human – I would have worried, fretted and stall like everybody else.
Now that Moving Difference is going and going to large numbers and going completely beyond what my little first thought was, well, it is a moment of awe.
Sometimes you don’t get to choose the moment that takes your breath away, it chooses you.
Moving Difference 