by Don Lehnhof, Director of Marketing
As we work to meet the challenges of everyday living, it’s often easy to lose perspective on where we’ve been and what we’ve accomplished. Sometimes it pays to pull yourself out of your current situation so that you can get a “global view” of your life experience. Have you ever been up in a hot air balloon or flown over your home city? Same thing. You see things in a new light – you gain perspective.
Interestingly, you achieve a similar result when you create a “year in review” storybook for your family. Your life might not seem that interesting on any given day, but when you take the time to remember and preserve the highlights of 365 days, your perspective widens – you see small, “ordinary” days combine to create a wonderful view of a rich and meaningful life!
I had a customer stop by unexpectedly yesterday. With tears in her eyes, she said, “I just wanted to say thank you for introducing me to Heritage Makers. I got my 2012 family yearbook back today and I can't stop the tears. I've been pretty hard on myself lately thinking I wasn't giving my kids enough, or doing enough activities, or providing things they thought were important. But here I am today, going through this book that is nearly 100 pages of smiles, activities, gifts and accomplishments, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job as a mom! Thank you for changing my perspective. Thank you for giving me a way to record and remember. I can't ever let this project slip!”
I had a similar experience with my 8-year-old who proclaimed a few weeks ago "all we ever do is chores!” I walked over, picked up the 2012 family yearbook, handed it to her, and asked her to find one picture in that 100-page book of her doing chores. She couldn't but she was reminded that we do a lot of really cool things in between the chores. What we have is powerful!