Sharing Our Gifts

Hello friends,

This musing is about all of us, so stay with me here…

Those of you who follow me on social media may have noticed an uptick of my presence there. After years of saying I should get more consistent about marketing my books, I finally joined a forty day challenge to do just that.

Now, I write because it's always been in me. It’s a major way I connect. I have visions of the world I want to be, and the stories I tell—both fiction and nonfiction—are one way of bringing these visions to life. Sure, I also do day to day real world actions toward this end, but writing, speaking, and teaching are key ingredients I use to help seed hope.

On a walk this week, I noticed some squirrel chewed figs on a fence in front of a small fig tree. That tree shared its gifts, nourished some animals, and suffered no angst about it.

So why have I felt uncomfortable with direct marketing all these years? There are half a dozen reasons, at least, but mostly I didn’t want people to feel bothered. Which, when I think of the responses most people have to my writing, is ridiculous. Sure, some people dislike my work. That’s to be expected. But plenty of other people enjoy or even love my work. And if my task is to share my visions with the world, I need to tell people about those visions, don’t I?

For twenty five days so far, I’ve been doing just that. And you know what? I feel liberated. Liberated from the tension that held me back from sharing what is so deeply important to me with the frequency needed to break through the noise.

You know what else? The response has been joyous and huge, for which I’m grateful.

All of this has me wondering about the ways too many of us are shy about sharing our gifts and talents. We’re often good about sharing resources or help, but how about that big idea we’ve been thinking about? How about that knitting project we’ve practiced on and finally finished? How about that song we love to sing? How about that hard-earned wisdom we wonder about passing along?

Are you sharing your gifts? I hope so. The world needs them. We cannot liberate each other and ourselves by hiding from the world. Perhaps it's time to take a breath, invoke some courage, and reach out.

Best wishes — Thorn