July 17, 2015 (Friday)
Yesterday’s blog can be summarized as, “Don’t waste your life.” Today I want to enlarge that theme with a blog on “Make your life count.”
I am not an avid sports fan, but I follow the news about sports heroes. I read about the ESPY Awards (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award) and some very impressive accomplishments of sports figures (Read about the awards and see the photos-click here).
I was moved as I saw the picture of Danielle Green and read the brief description of the reasons for her award. She was from Chicago’s South Side and went to Notre Dame, where she starred on the basketball team for 5 years before entering military service. She received a Purple Heart medal after losing her left arm from the elbow down in a grenade attack in Iraq. After coming home, she became a readjustment counseling therapist to post-war veterans and their families.
As she received the award she said to us: “Ask yourself: What’s my purpose? What’s my passion? What do I want my legacy to be? How can I live as a full human being? We can all find ways to support the people around us. We can all find a purpose on this Earth larger than yourself.”
What a marvelous statement on how to live our lives, backed up by a record of living what she preaches.
When we get depressed about the state of the world, along comes a person like Danielle to remind us that it is possible for us to live for a purpose and find joy and meaning by rejecting selfishness and self-centeredness and letting our lives count for something greater than ourselves. I don’t know about you, but her story lifts my spirits. And knowing that she is not alone, that there are thousands more like her all around us, should encourage and inspire us to do better ourselves.