Unrealized Impact
Without question, one of my great personal joys and pastimes, outside of anything with my family, is watching old movies. I am a Turner Classic Movie junkie. I specifically love movies from 1935 to about 1962. I have seen some so many times that I can recite many of the lines throughout the different pictures. And my favorite actor of all time spent much of his career in that time frame. The incomparable Jimmy Stewart.
One of his best-known movies is It's a Wonderful Life. And as the holiday season comes upon us, its appearance not only in classic movie networks but many others as well becomes almost the norm. Thus, I saw pieces of Jimmy Stewart in the 1946 classic several times in the last week or so. And every time I have the same reaction.
You simply never know the impact of your life on others or on those you don't even realize.
Two weeks ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue from someone I'd never heard of. Someone I've never met. Ironically, it was a couple of hours after watching a few minutes of Jimmy Stewart in his classic Christmas movie. The individual said in the e-mail that she wanted to spend a little bit of time talking to me. That she'd been listening to my podcasts. That she had read my book. That she read the blogs. And that was the reason she left the banking industry to go into nonprofit work. I more than humbly agreed to talk with her via Zoom.
It was a great conversation. This is someone who's making an investment in her community by being a fundraiser for a local nonprofit. And nowhere near Nebraska. I was and am humbled that anything that I say or do would have an influence.
And you don't have to look very far most of the time to realize it. Less than a week later, my seven-year-old daughter commented on the fact that daddy would never buy a new car because it always seems to bother him. As I said, roughly three months after she was born, that one is going to be trouble for the family. In this case, she's just the accurate one. Cars to me are always a nemesis because they cost so much, we don't use them all that often, and people feel good when they drive in a nice car, but between the expense and depreciation, they're my white whale. And without intention, to a seven-year-old who doesn't even understand the value of money or the importance of a car, influencing her with my thought process was easy to witness.
In the movie, Jimmy Stewart plays an individual who's allowed to see what would happen if he had never been born. What he realizes is that everyone that he loves, every place, city, and value, was less. I would never want that retrospective opportunity. But seeing the movie every year is a reminder about how important it is to realize how much you affect other people. Positively. Hopefully not negatively. But rarely is it inconsequential.
