Saturday, November 17, 2012

Speed Walking


It's easy to walk through a crowd and ignore the people around you. If you are focused on your fulfilling your objectives or a reaching a destination, you can miss those you pass by. What we often to fail to realize is that each person we pass by represents a life story. We have have no idea what frustrations they might have, the weight of their past, the things they have overcome, or the vision they have for the future. It takes intentional effort to stop and notice these things and the truth is that the pace of life encourages us to keep quickly moving.

John Maxwell, leadership guru, says that a leader walks slowly through a crowd. While I frequently move through crowds, I can become guilty of going too quickly and missing moments with people. I need to learn to slow down and take time to see each face, learn names, and hear people's stories. It is the mark of a person who genuinely cares for others and wants to share moments of life. There is something powerful in the intimacy of sharing our names and stories and we won't find it by speed-walking through the people around us.

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