I am a musician and also love to listen to various kinds of music. One of my favorites is country music (being from a farm in the Midwest, it’s sort of in my blood). Today I was listening to a country station while doing laundry and heard a new song. As is a very typical theme for country music, it was about lost love or almost-lost love. And one of the lines in it was about having a pebble “in my hand” and throwing it into a river. Somehow I missed the connection so I’ll have to listen to the song again — because somehow that pebble was supposed to indicate whether the almost-lost love was going to come back or not.
Anyway, what caught my attention was the “I’ve got a pebble in my hand” line. One of my thoughts when I debated starting blogging was writing about the effects our actions have on others and how we go about our business in this world often not thinking about those effects. Like a pebble dropped into a pond (or thrown into a river) we leave ripples behind us long after we have left the area.
Each morning when I wake up — I have a “pebble” in my hand. The things I do and say during the day as I interact with others (or not) determine what kind of ripples my pebble leaves behind. Each day I have the opportunity to leave good ripples behind me. I can think about what I say and how it will affect people. I can think about my actions and how a smile or kind word can brighten someone’s day and perhaps that person will in turn be in a positive mood and brighten someone else’s day — the ripple effect.
In the case of the environment — I have a huge pebble in my hand each time I use my car to go someplace. Today, I parked in a remote lot, loaded up my bag and walked to all my errands in town rather than driving to them. It took a lot longer, but there were several ripple effects. I ran into a friend on the street that I wouldn’t have had time to talk to if I’d been driving by. I got more exercise than I would have. And I used a little less of that $4.45 per gallon gasoline. Many good ripple effects of my actions.
I have a pebble in my hand — I will think about that each morning when I get up — the possibilities — I have a pebble in my hand —