What if just for today we celebrate all the heroes in our lives? What if we celebrate our own hero within? What if we remember the times when a smile brightened our day? A kind word lifted our spirits. What if today we decide to be all that we want from the world? What would a day of service and gratitude look like for us?
What if we choose to give that needed smile today? What if we decide to be patient in a traffic jam and use that time to bond and laugh with our family or make an unexpected call just to say THANK YOU? Are we willing to smile at the clerk and thank them for working today? If we are working today are we willing to work joyfully? What would happen if we decided to really be present for our children today? What if we forgive someone that we feel does not deserve it? If we do all this, how do we think today will be for us?
1. Make time for family today.
Focus not on our plans, our selfish desires, our need to escape. Instead focus on bonding, showing up and being present. Be of service today. What do we think we could gain from doing this?
We can ask our children questions. They may look at us puzzled if this is new. Tell them a story about our childhood. Do something silly and unexpected. Put away the phone, the computer and turn off the tv. Go outside and play water tag. Do something they’ve always wanted that we’ve promised but have not delivered.
“Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.” – Mother Theresa
2. Spend the day complimenting everyone.
What if we compliment our spouse? Would they appreciate our attention and focus? Would they possibly shift their state as a result of our undivided attention? What if we find things we love about our children and tell them? How do we think that would make them feel? What if every 5 minutes we look for something nice to say? Would this be hard or easy for us? It if would be hard, why is that? How do we normally spend our day? Is this time spent well? Will this lead to joy? What if we dared to speak kindness to a dreaded family member? What if we made an effort to let go of a grudge? Would it not really set us free? What if we decide to notice the small POSITIVE things in life? Would we perhaps see a more positive world?
“Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.” – Mother Theresa
3. Give everyone a free pass (including yourself).
Make a decision to ignore and dismiss anything unpleasant. Kids are fighting; ignore it. Instead smile and tell them they are our heroes. Would that be different? Would that shift the patterns we are stuck in? What if we tell them everything we love about them? How do we think they would feel to hear such things? When they ask “why” tell them it’s because today is a day to celebrate the service of others. Depending on our political beliefs we may thank our service people or we may simply say there are everyday heroes and we want to celebrate them today. Is that something our children are used to thinking about? What if we enrolled our children in a game? “Kids – today, all day, the entire family is going to smile at everything. We are all going to look for the good in every situation. We will ONLY say nice things. If we do not like something, we will just ignore it. Let’s remind each other all day of our goal and see who can stick with it the longest!”
Service starts at home. So we want to thank our children for being our heroes. Would they even understand what we meant? Maybe we say it’s for teaching us patience. For showing us unconditional love. For giving us purpose in life. Maybe we tell them how happy we were the day they were born. Or that they inspired us to be better people. Maybe we take the time to look into their eyes. Would they be used to this? We can be kind to ourselves. What if all day we only thought kind thoughts about us? What would happen if we gave ourselves a free pass and just decided for today we forgave ourselves?
4. Decide to give it away.
It is always a choice, how we decide to show up for life. Would we choose to give our love away instead of expecting to be loved? We can choose to be of service. To look what we can contribute to our family rather than what we expect to get from them. Will we remember to be happy if they are grumpy, peaceful if they fight, gentle if they are angry? How hard would this be? How much of an impact could we have in a positive way on our family if we did all these things… Just for today?
Will we choose to be a hero for just one day and think of all the ways we can add joy to the world? Will we be bold enough to turn off our own mind of what we want, what we think we should have, what we do not like and instead focus on what we love, what we can give and all that we can be thankful for? If we shifted our mind over and over to how we can be of service what would our day look like? How would others see us? How would we see the world? All we’ve changed are our thoughts and our focus. We have all the power in the world and maybe we have forgotten just how remarkable we are? We are capable of great things! Will we allow this greatness to shine today?
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can ALL do small things with great love.”
― Mother Theresa