I was at the 90th birthday party over the weekend for Harmon Born. Harmon has been a mentor to me all of my adult life and I will be forever grateful for his influence into my life. When I was young man with a young family, Harmon became the example I wanted to follow. At that time in my life, I needed to change the examples I was using to direct my life. I have certainly told Harmon on many occasions what he has meant to me over my adult life but it would be impossible for him to fully understand what the time he has spent with me has meant in my life. Simply put, he is my hero
Harmon has never missed an opportunity to pour himself into another person. I have heard it said that small people talk about other people, average people talk about things and leaders talk about ideas. Harmon has always talked about ideas and thought processes that can impact your life.
At his birthday party, I was standing in the group watching this 90 year old man take the microphone and began to speak. Before he finished speaking he left the crowd with three simple life goals. Do what is right, do your best at everything you do and show love to others. It is amazingly simple right? So easy and clear to understand but so very hard to actually do.
Do what is right. We know what the right thing is to do. There is very little gray area in most decisions we make. We know what the right thing is to do but the problem is many times we choose not to do it.
Do your best. If we really tried to do our best at everything we did, it would change our life. The problem is too many times we don’t go all the way and do our best, instead we give less than our best and live with the consequences.
Love others. I don’t know about you but I know a bunch of people that are hard to love. Ha. I find it is easy to love the ones that are lovable but I think what is important is to try and show kindness to the ones that are difficult. Me/you will never fully arrive at the place where we love everyone but we can start today to do a better job at showing kindness and forgiveness to others.
We all probably learned these three life principles on the first day of school. While they don’t give us all the answers to a fulfilling life, these three goals are a good place to start. KT