Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

Where The Fudge Leads
September 16, 2010

This is best done in a darkened kitchen well after the hubbub of the day.  Have a ready “explanation” for what you’re doing.  Maintain plausible deniability at all times.

The materials required are: a fresh half gallon of fudge ripple ice cream, and a teaspoon. (It’s also handy to have the daily newspaper nearby so as to appear preoccupied with current events.)

With the teaspoon, follow the fudge.  Sometimes the ripples peter out.  But sometimes they end in a jackpot: a vast reservoir of chocolate fudge.

You never know.

Ripples are like that.

I love Success Magazine.  I purchased a gift subscription for a business colleague thinking it might be helpful for him as he builds his business.  He thanked me for it and I know that he enjoys it.  Several months later, he told me that his wife, who suffers from depression, came upon the magazine and found many of the articles inspiring and uplifting.

An unexpected ripple.

Many years ago, a seminary classmate began the practice of paying for the order of the person behind her at the Dunkin’ Donuts Drive-Thru. And ignited a movement of generosity that grew like wildfire.

A random act of kindness.

Ann writes a tough no-nonsense blog entitled Things Momma Never Taught Me. Some of her friends have found it a bit “much” because of some of the “heavy” topics she’s handled. The mom of one of these friends discovered one of Ann’s pieces and found it comforting as she grappled with the terminal illness of someone close to her.

An unintended consequence.

I’m a big fan of a wonderful blog called Little Things Matter by leadership expert Todd Smith. “Every little thing you do, or don’t do, is noticed,” says Smith.  And impacts others in ways we cannot possibly begin to imagine.

I’ve always thought the “Butterfly Effect” to be an elegant and intriguing theory. Based upon the work of Edward Lorenz, a chaos theorist, the term is a metaphor for the initial conditions in a physical system that have the capacity to effect massive change.

According to Lorenz, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a distant tornado. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the entire chain of events would be different.

A little bit like the notion of karma in Buddhist teaching. The law of karma says only this: “for every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first, and this second event will be pleasant or unpleasant according as its cause was skillful or unskillful.”  Our actions have consequences. All of our deeds shape the past, present and future.

I never cease to be floored when something I say or do in passing and without intention “means” something to another.  And chastened when something inadvertent has caused hurt.

With mindfulness, we have the capacity to impact so many lives as we move through our days. A smile, a small deed, a kind word can lift the spirit and alter the trajectory of someone’s day. And in turn make a difference in the lives of countless others.

The image often used is the pebble tossed in the ocean.  The wavelets washing up on shores beyond our view.

Little things do matter.  Wherever the fudge leads.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

— Naomi Shihab Nye

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