Appreciating What We Create – A Lesson from Michael Jackson

Yesterday, an amazing talent in the person of Michael Jackson was lost suddenly.

His life was a dichotomy of phenomenal talent and passion for his craft on the one hand and a misunderstood, anguish-filled, pain-laden person on the other.

It is easy to embrace the positive and be critical and harsh of the negative – even when what we demand of celebrities often puts them on the slippery road of selling their soul to give us what we need.

Just as we cry foul when a company that produces the products we crave pollutes the environment in order to create them.

Just as we scream for justice when the financial institutions that we demand staggering returns from go belly up as they discover that the means of producing those returns is unsustainable.

Just as we turn our back on the incarcerated, writing them off as the lost and unsalvageable when investing our own gifts in others may have prevented someone from becoming this way in the first place.

We are quick to congratulate ourselves when we harvest something positive from society.

We are just as quick to criticize and blame others when what we harvest or perceive is not positive at all.

We can’t have it both ways.

We need to accept that we are responsible for what we create – the good and the bad.

Once we accept responsibility for both ends of the spectrum, maybe we will complain less and work harder to step up and create more positively and purposefully.

Michael Jackson did some things wrong in his life.  He did a lot of things right.  He overcame a lot.  Despite some of the things that he did that were wrong, he left a legacy to millions.

John Ruskin had a stone on his desk with one word carved in it. 

The word was “Today”.

What are you doing with the gift of today to leave a positive legacy to others?

Look within before looking outside.

Yours in service and servanthood.

Harry

Click here to read my detailed blog entry on “Appreciating What We Create”.