You are the Third Person

A friend of mine forwarded this essay by Zig Ziglar to me.  It's a good perspective.


Several years ago, I heard the statement that "every third person is either remarkably handsome and unusually bright, or amazingly beautiful and absolutely brilliant." I encourage you to make a mental note. The next two people you see, look them over real good. When you do, chances are excellent that you will come to the conclusion that it is neither one of them! That means it has to be you, if the formula is to hold true. When you think about it in these terms, I believe you will come to the conclusion that, yes, it does have to be you. 


From this moment on, I encourage you to think of yourself as that "third person," and as that third person, I want to share with you some important considerations about yourself. Several billion people have walked this earth, but there never has been, nor will there ever be, a person exactly like you. Your uniqueness gives you real value. 


Think about it like this: If man can take moldy bread and make penicillin out of it, think what an awesome God can make out of you. Listen to what St. Augustine said in 399 A.D. (and I paraphrase with this): Man travels hundreds of miles to gaze at the broad expanse of the ocean. He looks in awe at the heavens above. He stares in wonderment at the fields, the mountains, the rivers and the streams. And then he passes himself by without a thought -- God's most amazing creation. It is important that you think well, not egotistically, about yourself because the way you see yourself has a direct bearing on how you see and treat others. If you see yourself as happy, secure, self-sufficient and as a good friend, you'll attract happy, secure, self-sufficient, good friends. 


To get along well with people requires an elimination of prejudice, which, in virtually every case, is circumstantial, based either on ignorance or never having had any real relationship with those of a different race or culture. This does not mean that I'm suggesting or even mildly hinting that you have to agree with everybody on everything. To do so would be to invite disaster in your life. But it does mean that you can disagree without being disagreeable. You can disagree and yet respect that person's right to believe as he or she believes. You can have a different opinion without denying the other person the right to have the opinion he or she has. When you adopt that attitude and take that approach, you will probably be amazed to discover on occasion that your friend's point of view was right and yours was wrong. That's a sobering thought. 


When you take the right attitude toward another person, you not only avoid building a wall between the two of you, you also establish common ground and lay a solid foundation on which to build a relationship. It certainly is something to think about and something I have found to be very enlightening and beneficial. 


I encourage you to replay the tapes of your life. Explore the number of times people who were "different" from you turned out to be really great people, who had opinions with which you disagreed but that turned out to be correct. Take the approach I'm suggesting and you will become a happier, healthier, friendlier, better person. 

Sincere but deceived

On my way to work this morning, I was listening to a lectue on CD about the Prophet Lorenzo Snow, the 5th President of the Church. Shortly after his baptism (at the age of 22), he served a mission in Ohio. During that time, he tried to share the gospel with family and friends in that area but had limited success. In the lecture, it said that the general reaction he got among family and friends was "Lorenzo is sincere but he is deceived". I suspect that's exactly how a number of my family members and friends are feeling right now.

foodwinesex

A coworker of mine has caused a bit of a stir in the office with his new blog - foodwinesex. He's 52 and going through a divorce. He has also decided to visit the top 100 restaurants in San Francisco along with other top restaurants in other cities. GC started his blog to talk about his restaurant experiences along with the other stuff going on in his life. I love one observation in this post:

The emotional subtext of the [range of] reactions stem from a couple of phenomena I've begun to understand. When an individual exposes themselves nakedly and publicly, people have a hard time not looking while not looking away. It hits them at a very visceral level. Voyeurism is titillating but I would never let myself be so exposed. Emotional confusion. Another insight...people think they know me. There is a persona that everyone we know has built up around us as a shorthand to understanding who we are and to anticipate interpersonal reactions. When a dissonance, maybe a huge dissonance, is discovered some level of discomfort (or panic) ensues. I thought I knew him. My first reaction is to say "if this offends you, turn it off." Too glib. Instead I'll explain that this is the most basic stuff of my creative life. As I process the changes, turmoil, pain, exhilaration of where I am today, I want to use it to build something, to spin straw into gold. Alchemy.

This is all very true of my blog as well - although I haven't distributed it to as many people as publicly as GC. My brother, for example, doesn't know how to react to my blog. I think it makes him uncomfortable since he wouldn't do it himself - he's too guarded for it (as was I before going down this path). I've gotten comments from others like "good for you ... but I've never do it myself". All very understandable. As I told my therapist the other day, in general, my current philosophy is to be less guarded, to let people see the true me, and see what happens. Perhaps it will all backfire but I suspect more good will come of it than bad.

As an aside, this is post #100 to my blog. Amazing how many posts I've done in a relatively short period of time (4 months) - that's almost one per day.

The wind beneath my wings

When I turned 30 roughly two years ago (June 2004), my wife organized a surprise birthday party for me at a local park. For reasons I won't get into, I almost missed my party. But I'm so glad I didn't. It was the best birthday present I've ever received (and I'll always be grateful to my wife for giving it to me). In addition to the shear amount of work that went into organizing the party (especially with the birth of our second son only one month earlier), I was astonished at the turn-out of people - some of whom I hadn't seen in quite some time. I still remember how good it felt to know that people genuinely cared about me. It gave me confidence that I could tackle any challenge that life presented.

I was reminded of that feeling today. I sent out an email announcement last night regarding this blog. Honestly, I was initially hesitant to start this blog and even more hesitant to share it with others. There was definitely a part of me that was afraid of being judged or being vulnerable to what others might say or do with this information. But I'm glad I pushed past those fears and shared all of this with you.

Thank you for the kind emails and comments today. It means so much to me to know that I have all of you in my life and that I can count on your support. Please know that I will support you in whatever way I can. Each of you is in my heart every day.