In the last few weeks I’ve learned about the power of one. One person can’t do everything, but everyone can do something. And that something can either make our corner of the world better or more difficult. We choose our impact through our actions and words, and the impact we make affects everyone around us. Will we help people dream big? Will we encourage people to craft lives they love and treasure? Will we live in a way that shows people what’s possible? I hope for this more than anything—that all the choices I make, regardless of the outcomes, help others to take more chances and let go of everything that doesn’t serve them well. Life’s too short for anything else.
Whenever I feel down on my luck, I always try to do something nice for someone else because it lifts me up to know that I’ve helped someone in a way that they couldn’t help themselves. You get what you give.
We’ve all got something to give. Anthony Cymerys, a barber in Hartford, has been giving haircuts to the homeless in exchange for a hug for 25 years. He sets up shop at Bushnell Park. I read about this inspiring story on DailyGood.org and it filled my heart with joy and my eyes with tears. Giving is a powerful antidote for what hurts and it benefits the giver as much as the receiver. What can you give?
“Generosity is the best investment.” ~ Diane Von Furstenberg
We have so many ways to give, and so much to offer to one another. It’s the great conundrum of our society that there is always someone else who is having a tougher time than we are. And yet this knowledge, while sad in some ways, is incredible in other ways because it means we always have the chance to make life better for someone else. Generosity is the vehicle for goodness, and it’s at our disposal of every hour of every day. There are endless opportunities for us to express it, appreciate it, and foster it. So spread some cheer around everywhere you go. The more you give, the more you realize you have – it’s a wonderful riddle that needs no solution.
“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be. How much you can love. What you can accomplish. And what your potential is.” ~ Anne Frank
It’s important to share your dreams and triumphs. First, people who love you and care about you want to hear about them. I would argue that more importantly you never know just who will be inspired by them and how much that inspiration will alter the course of someone else’s life. You’ve lived your story; the life you’ve created is the result. Stories in and of themselves do not have value. It is the sharing of those stories that makes them valuable. Sharing gives us time to reflect on them and it lets others do the same. When we keep our stories to ourselves, we never realize their full potential.
So go up to the highest mountain top and shout about it. Tell people what you’ve done, and how and why and what you plan to do with everything you learned in the process. Listen to their questions and do your best to answer them. Tell them what your fears were and how you overcame them. Explain your gratitude and thank those who helped you along the way. Talk about your choices and their consequences. Share what you would do differently the next time around. Help others learn from your mistakes.
We have so much to gain by telling our tales and others have so much to learn from hearing them. Be a hero. Share your news.
Just another day on the Great Lawn in Central Park
“You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.” The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
The universe always rises up to support someone with a passion to do something of value for others.
I think about this quote a lot when people ask me about Compass Yoga‘s partnership with the New York Public Library. We offer 9 weekly classes at different library branches in Manhattan, all free of charge to anyone who walks through the door. Over the past two years since we began offering the classes, a number of people have asked me how I make sure the people who are in the class really need it. What they’re really asking is how do I feel about them coming to our classes for free while they have the means to pay for classes elsewhere.
We certainly do have students who could afford to pay something for a class – perhaps not the $20 or so it costs for many classes around the city, but certainly something. A few of our students have given donations to Compass Yoga because they are of means and support our work. I wish others who are of means would do the same. Perhaps in time they will. Other people have given their time and expertise to support our work. Other people don’t have the means at all, but they bring their energy and dedication to class every week.
There’s another New York-based charity that operates under the same circumstances as Compass Yoga: NYC Parks. Consider how often New Yorkers take advantage of the beauty of Central Park, or any of the other public parks in the city, on a sunny day? How many of them have donated money to NYC Parks? Certainly not all of them, maybe not even most of them. I wish more people would donate, though the parks don’t discriminate. They don’t have a giant gate around them demanding payment before entry. Compass Yoga has the same philosophy as Central Park: to be free and open to all who enter.
I started Compass to bring more yoga to more people in more places, no strings attached. I also started it so that yoga teachers who are just starting out could get experience teaching. I wanted to build a bridge between the people who need what yoga has to offer and the people who have the training to teach. I know if we stay true to that goal and work hard at creative fundraising strategies, eventually the funding will flow. The trickle has already begun; now its our job to do our best to carve it into the Mississippi for the sake of all our students.
My friend, Adela, posted this on her Pinterest board and it raises a question that I’ve run through my mind so many times this holiday season. It’s fine to wish or hope for something though every person I know who is happy has two qualities in abundance: gratitude and determination. They don’t pray for things to get better; they work hard and make them so. They recognize the value of who and what they have in their lives and they share with others.
Here’s what I’ve learned – everything, absolutely everything, can be figure out. We can find a way into a new job or field. We can solve challenges, locally and globally, by extending our hands and acting together. We can find love by opening our hearts. We can improve our world, for ourselves and others, by shutting down our devices, leaving our homes, and rolling up our sleeves. And none of this requires that we have more stuff. It requires that we have more heart, more concern, more courage, more confidence. It requires us to understand that we have everything we need to do everything we want to do. The question is what will we do with it.
This Christmas, I hope we all get just one thing in our stockings – the strength to decide that the helping hands we want are the ones we already have.
I know that many of you have been looking for ways to help in response to the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. I’ve been searching high and low, and finally CBS This Morning ran a segment on how to help no matter where we live.
Below are links to efforts that are organizing volunteers, funds, and assistance. Lend a hand, lend your heart, lend some help. It’s the best holiday gift you could possibly give this season.
I was at the dentist when I first saw the news yesterday about Newtown, Connecticut. I am heartbroken for everyone impacted by this horrific event. So much will be revealed in the coming days – motives, names, faces, details of the event, tears. A great deal of healing will be necessary.
For many months I have been thinking about how Compass Yoga can make a difference in the world in these kind of circumstances – tragedies that cause so much trauma, grief, and pain in their aftermath, even long after they’ve ceased to be front page news. I believe we have something to offer; that we have the ability to mobilize a great wave of healing, support, and compassion in the face of unspeakable events.
In the new year, I’m going to find a way to bring this mobilization of healing to life. I wish it weren’t needed but in 2012 alone so many people in our country have endured unprecedented amounts of pain and loss. We must do more to stand up for them, to stand beside them, to be Earthly angels that help light the way forward.
There’s something to be said for giving without asking for anything in return. Give time, love, kindness, empathy. Give it away to people who need it and ask for it. Give it away to people who need it, even though they’re too proud to ask for it.
I’ve never regretted giving. Even if it didn’t come back to me in the way I expected or hoped or wanted it to. I have found that in some way everything I’ve ever given has been returned to me many times over.
I’ve been sorry for times when I didn’t give enough, or when I didn’t give at all. I often think about those times and wish I could go back and do more. But since there’s no changing the past, I double down on my giving today and tomorrow. That lesson has been its own gift.
I know this much is true: the more I give, the more I receive. The more I give, the more I believe in the power of goodness. The more I give, the more I realize that we have the opportunity every day to make this world a little brighter, a little better, a little more like a world we’re proud to call home.
I know that many of you have been looking for ways to help in response to the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. I’ve been searching high and low, and finally 
There’s something to be said for giving without asking for anything in return. Give time, love, kindness, empathy. Give it away to people who need it and ask for it. Give it away to people who need it, even though they’re too proud to ask for it.
Christa Avampato 