Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America It isn't that we are influenced by another but that the culmination of the influence around us influences our actions. Our actions lead us somewhere. Yet when those influences are interrupted by something new or unexpected it changes how we perceive what has influenced us in the past, the actions we choose and ultimately what is available to us outside of the reality we created. These new experiences hold the opportunity to set our world on fire. I was out with friends in a small-town country bar. This young woman and her mother were admiring how I couldn't possibly be from 'around here'. Apart from the fact that they had never seen me at their local spot, I was the only one not wearing flannel and as soon as I open my mouth my Australian accent drips out. The daughter, an exuberant and cheerful young woman was a Vet Technician. Naturally, when we see a foreign object we want to understand how it came to be. So she wanted to hear all about what brought me to her part of the World. She couldn't believe her luck to find someone from the other side of the World, who spends most of her time travelling in a such small place and so far off the beaten track. The sky ablaze across farm land on the edge of the Platte River. It turns out that she dreams of having a career that takes her around the World. She wants to be the kind of woman that can take on anything and be an inspiration to others. From what I experienced of her, there is no doubt that she will someday.
The irony is that as much as she couldn't believe to have met me, I was equally surprised to have met her. And quietly laughing at all the scenarios that had led me to that place in time. And while she was excited about the possibilities for her that I embodied, she too embodied possibilities for me. Our interaction had me thinking about the power of influence. It is one thing to be intentionally influential, investing in ways we want to impact others, creating things or entities to support the encouragement of an action or ideal. As we make choices for who we want to be each day, in the pursuit of what we want to design for ourselves. We seldom consider what those choices have the power to do. No matter how small they are. And if we are doing it right, we consider even less what others think of the choices we make for ourselves. It is because of this that it never crosses our mind that in just living our life we can be influential to someone else. Someone we have never met, or may never meet may merely find exactly what they are looking for in who we are, without us even trying. This brings me to the strength of our actions and words on any given day. And the possibility that such things are even more influential than those that we nurture intentionally and on a grand scale. As we interact in daily life far more frequently than we do on stage or out to the public, it could be said that it is our everyday way of being that determines the influence we have in a more concentrated affect. Our repetitive actions compounding to become who we are, which in turn impacts another either directly or indirectly. Multiplied by how many times we encounter People in a lifetime, maybe our understanding of influence is entirely wrong. And it isn't that something influences us to do something but that through the influence of our interactions with others we make choices based on who we become because of them. This young woman was so grateful to have met someone like me. It was as though her dreams had rolled up on her doorstep inviting her to take them on. What I don't believe she realized though, is how grateful I was to have met her, That young woman reminded me of the sheer impact our lives have on the environments we walk through. How we each hold something within us and within our lives that has the power to encourage another however they see fit. How who we choose to be every day is powerful and how greatly we create change and impact without trying. For it isn't for us to decide what others need, nor for others to decide what we need. But an exchange of giving what we are, so that others can find what they need.
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Considerations, questions and experiences garnered within a life.
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