Introspection + Contemplation + Ideals

Who are you and what is your brand?
What value can you add?
What unique skills and insightful perspective can you contribute?

In which we have our resumes at hand: A few pages of writing to show what we can do, giving us identity; A few pages to showcase our skills and relevant experiences proving we are "top talent"; That we are valuable people and worth a certain salary.

And still it's not enough. We are bombarded by society to develop more and more our sales skills, leadership skills, managerial and technical skills.

On top of this we are invariably told to do the smart thing and make an investment in something; To get ahead and increase our financial net worth.

And we are told to love.

Wait... society doesn't bombard us to be loving, not overwhelmingly anyway. Wouldn't that be weird if it did? I find that the only strong message to be loving or caring come from the religious institutions that have become largely irrelevant, misinterpreted and forgotten by the non-religious. That and also children's shows like Sesame Street.

Perhaps that's why there is an influx of social justice and environmentalist movements among the socially conscious. These are dire times in the world, but maybe it speaks something about what people were created to do. That is, to love. Could it be that our souls have been so sapped by Western culture's push for productivity, self importance and self improvement that after the splurge in materialism turning out to be ineffective in dealing with matters of the heart, we now en mass turn to do something about this tug in our hearts?

If you've been doing something about the pains of the world before it became a cool and romantic endeavor, before it was good to include on a resume or business school application, then you are awesome.

Yet maybe I'm being too harsh... if the net effect is that people are helped, then perhaps motives aren't so important... another topic for another day.

I believe we should cultivate and grow our hearts so that this muscle that pumps blood through our veins remains strong, giving us energy to care for others and courage to do what is right. We should seek to develop a heart able enough in it's ability to love so that when the time of testing comes, it may not fail us.

Instead of seeking to build a resume full of accreditations and experiences demonstrating leadership, we should look to develop that unseen resume full of experiences and achievements done through a loving heart which includes both big causes and small daily ones.

Because, I believe that is what God will be looking for in the end.