Friday reflection

That domino life

Hi everyone,

What if you posted something online that had a huge impact on just one woman?

I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating, because the more we acknowledge just how interconnected we all are, the more of us may step up to the proverbial plate to share our ideas, voices, and stories.

You don’t have to be an expert. You don’t have to be a member of Mensa. You don’t have to be wealthy or consider yourself successful. You have things to say.

Say them.

This morning I was watching domino videos with my 10-year-old daughter, Ali. (We found them via the Sensical app from Common Sense Media, which I highly recommend as a source of curated, safe content.) Seeing designs made of 30,000 dominoes that teams had painstakingly assembled, watching them ripple and shimmy and topple, was absolutely mesmerizing.

Ali turned to me and she said, “You know, mom, dominoes are like life.” And she proceeded to reference an episode of the Apple TV show Central Park that we’d recently rewatched, where a butterfly triggers a Rube Goldberg machine-like series of tiny impacts that end up allowing the heroes to stop the sale of the park to greedy wealthy people. She said, “What if I become a famous domino artist, and it would never have happened if you hadn’t had me try this app this morning?”

I recently came across a very vulnerable blog post I write about six years ago — Facebook’s “on this day” feature brought it to my attention. I actually cringed a little bit, reading it, because of how raw it was; I felt exposed. And then I read all the comments, with people from so many different corners of my life weighing in to say, “Wow, I’ve felt that way, thank you for writing this” or, “I had to read that twice, it really hit a nerve.”

Brene Brown isn’t kidding when she says vulnerability is powerful. But it’s not just about being “powerful.” It’s about being kind. We all need each other.

“It’s arrogant to talk about myself,” people say to me, all the time. Actually, it’s arrogant not to. Who are you to decide that you don’t matter to the rest of us? You have a unique spark inside of you and a unique vantage point on the world. You have visibility into things that the rest of us don’t, whether you’re a checkout clerk or a CEO. Show us what you see. Tell us what you think. Let us be moved by you, inspired, informed, provoked.

After all, if just one domino is missing from a design, the entire, beautiful creation fails to flow.

You are a mighty force, and together, we are even mightier.

- Amanda

P.S. Leave a comment to share one thing that moved or inspired you this week. It can be deep, silly, interesting… I promise, at least one other person will be moved or inspired by YOU, in turn, and you will have committed an act of kindness.