My family heritage is nearly 100% Irish so St. Patrick’s Day is a big holiday for us and we never get through the day without hearing about “the luck of the Irish”. My life has been “lucky”. I have three wonderful children—two grown sons, a teenage daughter and a daughter-in-law—who all make me happy and proud. I have a kind and supportive husband, fun loving and caring brothers, sister and parents, a successful professional career and business, and many treasured friends. My life has been “lucky.”
Except that I don’t believe in luck. Because luck implies that good things—or in the case of bad luck, bad things—just happen—that there is no personal choice involved. Instead, I believe in abundance—that there is so much good in the world that there is plenty to go around for everyone—and that if I choose to look for the good in things that happen, I’ll see it. This contrasts with a belief in scarcity—that there is a limited amount of good in the world and I better take mine or you might get it and then there won’t be any left for me.
This perspective carries over to NAWBO. None of us get paid for what we do in NAWBO—we’re all volunteers. And we can look at what we contribute to NAWBO as not enough because there is always more to do—a scarcity perspective. Or we can look at what we do in NAWBO as contributing something that wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t taken the time and energy to do it—and abundance perspective. If you are already volunteering your time in NAWBO—take a minute to focus on what you have contributed and feel good about it. If you are not volunteering your time, don’t let a scarcity perspective get in your way—don’t think “I don’t have enough time to do a good job as a committee member so I won’t join a committee at all”.
Our NAWBO Chapter’s slogan is “NAWBO Creates Connections” and my president’s theme for this year is “Create Connections to Make a Difference”. Let’s all adopt an abundance perspective – give whatever of our time and energy we can to NAWBO and be proud of what we accomplish. If we do—if each of us gives what we can—we’ll create “luck” for our NAWBO Chapter—we’ll create connections that make a difference.
