I’ve been a little more stressed than normal for a few days. Some of it is work related and some is personal. Some is due to the crazy list of things I’m supposed to get done this week that doesn’t give me a minute to pause, even throughout the weekend ahead. The tiring pace of the schedule is made more tiring when there isn’t even a large block of hours over the weekend to just chill and catch my breath.
That’s why I am thankful for a little bit of kindness and mercy shown to me today. The kindness that really touched me was an extremely nice note shared publicly on our internal social network about the work I do and this person’s belief in it’s positive impact on the company. The mercy shown was when a 6pm Friday deadline for a quiz I need to take was extended to late Sunday evening.
I knew I wouldn’t make the original deadline because of work demands, so I let the person know that I would get it done later tonight. I usually have to do these at home on my own time, anyway, so 6pm deadlines are tough to make. Doing it last night or any other night this week wasn’t an option, either, due to my schedule. So you can imagine the sigh of relief when I learned that the gentleman was extending the deadline a couple of days. Several others were also delighted at the news.
It reminds me of a general principle that I tried to follow as a parent more often than not – when you can, say ‘yes.’ The idea is to not be so rigid on things of little long-term consequence that you end up saying ‘no’ just because it’s the rule or more convenient to do so. Sometimes it’s much better to say ‘yes’ to requests even though it may alter your plans or inconvenience you in some way.
So my thanks go to Teri for her well-timed words of encouragement and to Jim for saying ‘yes’ when he didn’t have to.
Leap year lesson #292 is Kindness and mercy make a healing salve.
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