It’s not about Me

Sometimes, it bothers me when people are too pushy to get their work out there. By doing this, life and writing becomes just about getting notice or published. I feel like this is selling out. Sometimes, I find myself acting like what I cannot stand. Forgive me if I do.
Ralph Emerson describes those with skilled taste, but something is missing:

Those who are umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination of whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remains cold. (“the Poet” page 213 of Essay and Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson)

This is convicting to me. If I write the most beautiful lines, but I ignore those who are held back in poverty, then I am not writing poetry into the lives of others and my words mean nothing. This world is not kind to many of brothers and sisters, and horrors like Human Trafficking are at an all time high. I don’t want to write for my own gain. I just want to influence others to help those in need  and show others that life is beautiful, and yes, even in darkness there is light.

This life and these lines are not about me.

Life becomes meaningful when one notices the person that the world has marginalized. To show kindness to the proverbial “kid sitting alone at the lunch table,” and I know this all can sound a bit cliché. However, spend a Saturday hanging out at a local recovery center or volunteering to help out in the community, and see if I am right.

The paradox of life is, for our lives to be full, we must empty ourselves for the sake of others.

We may have our successes, but I feel this is all loss, if we let someone we could have helped slip into despair and hopelessness.

Wherever, you are in life,
Find those hurting,
Find those others are content to ignore,
Find them,
Let them in,
Love them with abandonment,
Write lines of beauty and hope into their lives
And find that they have written a few into you.

-js