Coffee and a Conversation

Encouragement is the key to a well kept man.

The man who seems the most secure is the man who has the greatest friends on his side, and is a constant receptor and giver of encouragement. Without encouragement, where would we be?

A man once said to me, "I once knew a man that woke up to a beautiful bright sunny day; he had his favourite breakfast, and proceeded to have an enjoyable day. Yet he returned in the night with sadness in his heart. That same man woke up the next day, to a storm. He grabbed a piece of toast, and rushed off to work for 8 hours. At work, one of his coworkers, who was working on the project with him, simply said 'Man. If I ever get as good at my work as you are, I'll be a happy man'. Later that night, he went to sleep with a light heart." The point he was trying to make here is that someone can have a good time without truly being happy; but an encouraging word can brighten up even the darkest of situations.

Imagine if we all lived by a code of conduct called EPS GEW
Encourage the
Poor in
Spirit;
Give an
Encouraging
Word

Simple as that. Now, I don't mean to say that we only encourage those who are sad. There's nothing wrong with building up someone who is perfectly happy with where they're at. But if were to live out our lives giving encouraging words, rather than harsh words, how much different would our lives be? If we took time out of our day to build up the guy in our office who has trouble getting assignments in, rather than cussing out the jerk who cut in front of us at the drive thru, what would our days be like?

I can tell you, the world would be a beautiful place.

I'm not saying we don't encourage; I know plenty of people(Jenn Silver specifically comes to mind!) who are some excellent encouragers. But what if every time we wanted to just harsh someone's mellow, or cuss someone out, we instead looked at it from their standpoint? And then, we encourage them. Brighten their day. Or hey, if they were just being jerks to get a reaction, you'll piss them off even more by being a nice guy!

EPS GEW