A Tribute to Nobody
"Take time to care, for you may be among angels unaware."
A word to the wise - watch out for the nobodies.
You know the ones - people who seem to blend into the crowd; the faceless, nameless souls you pass by everyday and almost never notice. The "Plain Janes" and the "John Does" who have somehow turned being invisible into an art form. For every person who draws attention to themselves, either intentionally or unintentionally, there are hundreds who go by undetected, yet they are the ones who hold far greater power and influence than any public figure whose every move is made known.
Getting too deep for you? Consider this:
For every act of terrorism, it's not the leader of the terrorist group who carries out their evil plans, but the silent followers. The nobodies who slip by unnoticed and set off bombs or fly planes into buildings, leaving mass destruction in their wake.
For every campus massacre there was a nobody or a group of nobodies whose hatred and anger grew silently to deadly proportions while even those closest to them were tragically unaware.
The most newsworthy and sensational of all human tragedies and triumphs comes not from the "somebodies", but the nobodies who made everybody sit up and take notice. "He seemed such a nice quiet man...a good neighbor...I had no idea." "She came from nothing and built an empire..." You know the story. We all do.
Then there's the other kind of nobodies - and it's those that I want to speak to you about today, because the nobodies are actually the somebodies who deserve our attention, not the other way around.
If you're a nobody today, this is dedicated to you.
It might interest you to know that the greatest people who ever lived were not the best looking or the ones with the most money or advantages, but the ones who had something much more valuable to give. The greatest among us are not the leaders or the superstars or the wealthy entrepreneurs, but the least likely heroes, who's unseen and unsung acts of selflessness have, collectively, changed the world.
Know anyone like that?
How about the childcare worker who cares for your child like it was her own while you work each day, or the family member who takes care of an aging parent. Or the nurse who takes care of your aging parent. The teacher who inspired you to learn or the friend who always knows just what to say at just the right time. Maybe its even the less noticed nobody like the neighborhood woman who picks up garbage along the street every evening just to make it nicer for everyone else, or the quiet one in your office who always seems to do more than their share and never takes credit.
Perhaps its the cleaning person who goes the extra mile and turns down the corners of the toilet paper or the garbage man who comes back for your trash after his route out of kindness, or the greeter at Wal-Mart who is working way past retirement or the bag boy who not only bags your groceries but unloads your cart - with a smile. What about the little old ladies who make quilts for the needy and sew toys for poor children, or the social worker who is on call 24 hours a day. The mothers and fathers who still wear shoes from 1973 so their kids can have everything they need or those special needs kids who work at jobs no one else wants and do it with all their heart.
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lao Tzu
Did you know:
When Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize, she was asked, "What can we do to promote world peace?" She answered "Go home and love your family." Building on this theme in her Nobel Lecture, she said: "Around the world, not only in the poor countries, but I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society - that poverty is so hurtable [sic] and so much, and I find that very difficult."
You don't have to be Mother Teresa to be a saint. In fact, the most beloved saints were actually - nobodies. Everyday people who stepped out of their comfort zone and saw that nobody was more important than anyone else and everybody deserved to be loved.
Today, celebrate the nobodies in your life by making it a point to notice everybody - every day. Seek out the invisible people around you and make them visible by giving them your attention, even if it's just with a genuine smile. The tiniest acts of kindness can influence entire populations, and you never know which nobody in your life will be the next somebody who changes the world for everybody - and it all starts with you.
Be a world changer.
You are loved,
RiMi
