The Greatest Truth I’ll Probably Never Share.
That’s right – I doubt I’ll ever share it. It’s taken me a long time to come to that conclusion, because 99% of the time I truly, passionately and deeply believe that truth needs to be shared as much as possible.
We live in such a world of make believe social media, parsed communication, spun information and outright lying on the internet that this world needs truth like a drowning man needs oxygen.
But this truth – not one that can be easily shared.
I saw a video a few weeks ago that stopped me in my tracks, and left me overwhelmed and amazed. It wasn’t a video that I would have ordinarily watched, but as I was pursuing an answer to a problem, it happened to pop up as a recommendation, and since I was getting nowhere in my pursuit, I figured I’d take a moment to allow the randomness that is the universe take me on a journey.
And some things, once you’ve seen them – you can never go back again.
If I were to explain who the presenter was (they are not a famous person), you’d probably look at me and do the German Shepherd head tilt. It’s definitely not someone you would expect me to listen to.
The title of the talk was curious, again not usually something that I spend my time researching, and yet what I learned was the answer to a question that I had been asking for a very long time.
And the presenter answered this age old question of mine in one sentence. And that was all it took.
By now, I’m sure you’re wondering why I won’t go into further detail about this. After all, if it was so powerful, surely it would be of benefit to others. My guess is that it really would, but only in a very few cases.
Not that this truth isn’t applicable in a huge number of lives, because it is. I considered sharing it with everybody I could think of at the time, but then I stopped as a sudden realization took hold of me.
Some truths can’t be taught, they have to be learned.
Because if I had shared this answer with people, I really think that those who needed to learn it would likely dismiss it. It’s not an easy truth to learn, and I really believe that it’s a truth you have to be seeking before you can appreciate it.
You have to really, truly, humbly and deeply WANT to know the answer before you can accept it. If you hear it before you’re ready – chances are you’ll ignore it at best, or be outright angry and hostile to it at worst.
So it’s a matter of time, and preparation.
And it got me to thinking about how many times I may have heard the answers to my problems, but I wasn’t ready. Maybe I didn’t know it was a problem, or maybe I wasn’t ready yet to hear the answer.
Possibly because I was too caught up in self pity, or just didn’t want to face that I had a responsibility within the problem, because it was far easier to blame someone else for all that was wrong in my life.
So the truths I needed were possibly ones that I missed, time and time again.
Which is why I’ve decided that I’m going to hold onto the truth that I learned in that video. There may come a time when I share it with a person or two, but only when I think they are truly ready, and truly seeking.
Maybe it will be in a coaching session, or maybe in a late night crisis phone call when someone’s life is burning down, and they’ve come to me for any help I can provide.
But it’s use will be careful, controlled, and very, very compassionate.
Today, I invite you to listen to the world around you, and see if you can find solutions that you might need, but not want to hear.
The truths we need are usually all around us.
If we will only have ears to hear, and hearts to understand.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings