Recently, I attended a talk by a man who is looking to unseat my Congresswoman—who’s a bit of a firebrand. After a brief intro, he said,
“If I’m elected, the first thing I’ll do is to meet with every one of my colleagues to get to know them personally.
“Then, I’ll ask them, ‘What’s one thing your Mom told you that you’ll never forget?'”
He wanted to connect with their humanity because, as he said, “If you don’t have relationships, you can’t get anything done.”
That appealed to me. Plus, it got me thinking: What was one thing my Mom told me that I've never forgotten?
After running through her many words of wisdom, I settled on this one as the most impactful and memorable:
“Many Hands Make Light Work”
Growing up, we spent summers at a rustic cabin on a lake. My dad came up every weekend, often bringing our friends. It was a never-ending job keeping the place up.
My folks needed us kids to help out—and they didn’t want to remind us every single time.
Under my mother’s direction, each of us traced our hand on paper, cut it out, and wrote our names in the middle with a bright crayon.
Then she taped all our hands to the wall in the dining room as a very visual reminder that we'd see every single day.
Everyone needed to help! We couldn’t expect others to do all the work that needed to be done. It was an important lesson.
Final Thoughts
As I said earlier, so much needs to be done. Sure, we can blame others for what’s wrong. But more importantly, we can all chip in to help. That's the lesson I learned.
Now it's your turn. What’s one thing your Mom told you that you've never forgotten? And how can you use that message today to make a difference?
We all have a job to do—and we need to get started. Because “Many Hands Make Light Work!”
