Mayfield: Let’s give each other space and kindness to recharge
Jun 13, 2023, 8:07 AM | Updated: Jun 14, 2023, 12:50 pm
Four construction workers take a nap, balanced on a steel girder hung 800 feet over Manhattan, during the construction of the RCA Building. Man on left has been identified as Joseph Eckner; man second from right in undershirt has been identified as Joe Curtis, per documentation found in the Rockefeller Center archives.
I forgot to charge my phone last night. When I woke up, I couldn’t find it on the charger, and my heart sank.
I fumbled around in the dark in the bedroom, trying to find it without waking my husband. Eventually, I did, and the battery was at 1%.
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Since I didn’t have time to plug it in and forget it, I’ve been hopscotch charging. You know this dance, right? You plug it in in the kitchen while you make coffee, then in the bathroom, while you shower, then in the car as you drive to work, now it is plugged in at your desk until you have to go to 8 meetings where you’ll try to find the least conspicuous places to stretch your cord across the room and keep charging.
No matter what I do today, it won’t really be full until I put it on the charger overnight, and tomorrow, hopefully, things will be better.
Why am I telling you all of this mundane information about my morning? Because it had me thinking about other ways we can all operate with a low battery.
Maybe work stress is draining you faster than you can recharge it. Maybe something sour in a relationship is sucking extra power you cannot afford to expend. Maybe the general state of our world prevents you from even getting to 100% at all.
Starting to sound familiar? Me too.
Now stop for a minute and look around. The people in the cars in traffic next to you are feeling that too. Your co-workers across the way are for sure feeling it. Even those folks you love living near and far are run down in some way.
And here’s the other thing, they may never tell you about it. So instead of seeing the worst in their actions, you can take a second and give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they honestly didn’t see you when they cut you off or didn’t know you were slighted by what they said at the coffee machine.
Maybe they are going through it too?
They need a recharge as much as you do. So why not be part of their hopscotch charging for the day? Give them a smile, a wave, a kind word or just let whatever it is go.
Maybe if you move toward that attitude each day, others, in turn, will help power you up too.
We all need a little space, a little grace, and some extra charge
Now where did I plug in my phone?
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