A friend tells the story of a task he had to deliver before a large group of people, and the day before, circumstances were overwhelming to the point where he wondered how he was going to pull it off.
“With everything else, I have to do this tomorrow,” he said to his wife, but together they shifted his mindset.
There aren’t many people chosen, willing and able to perform the task, and he’s very good at it. He realized that because he was chosen, he’s one of the few who get to do it. He worked on changing his mindset from “I have to do this” to “I get to do this, praise the Lord.”
Not only did he deliver the task the following day, it was one of his best efforts I’ve witnessed, and I’ve seen him do it quite a few times. It was downright inspiring, and more so given that pocket version of the circumstances.
It’s not unusual to lose track of our good fortune. I’ve had the privilege of reporting local news for various communities for nearly 50 years, but from time to time I find myself, like Sunday afternoon, thinking of pleasurable things I’d prefer to do and thinking, “But I have to do this.”
It was a task I’ve done hundreds of times before: The bulk of the stories in this week’s paper are about government meetings, which do not lend themselves to interesting photographs, and so I needed to go out and find images to feature on the front page. That meant foregoing some fun recreational opportunities.
As I was driving to a popular ice-fishing spot, it occurred to me: There aren’t many people chosen, willing and able to work on community newspapers anymore. I get to be one of them. I started thinking how cool it is to be paid to take pictures of people having fun or write stories about what the local county board and school boards are up to. Praise the Lord!
I still wished I was doing that other stuff, but at least I worked up a little appreciation that I get to do what I’ve done for a living all these decades.
I have to get to “get to” more often.
