These Are My JOTtings...

Living Life to Make Others' Lives Better

I seem to recall that in my teen years there was an advertisement by Memorex that used the words, "We don't do what you do. We make what you do better." Sadly, I can't find anything online to verify my recollections.

However, be that as it may,...the point can still be made. Sometimes, I lament the fact that I have never been a famous writer, photographer, musician or anything that this world seems to laud as being noteworthy. Yet, I have two ladies in my life, my wife and my daughter, who are becoming well-known in their areas of giftedness.

I may or may not be famous, but if I help others to reach their own goals in life, then my life has been well-lived.

Besides, fame is a matter of perspective. I may not be a world famous writer, who has sold thousands or millions of copies of his or her work, but I am in receipt of a yellow suitcase on Writing.Com and have friends here, who value my work.

As a piano player I have never been invited to be the featured pianist in a concert at Carnegie Hall, but I have been the primary musician at various churches in my lifetime in which I have played the piano and the organ and have led the singing as needed. I had one experience in which the same gentleman, who was about twenty years my senior, would stop by my piano every Sunday morning after the worship service and say something like, "Good Job! Good Job!" (It means all the more to me, since he passed away about four or five years ago.)

Ansel Adams is one of my heroes of photography. (From the words of other photographer friends, I am certainly not alone in that regard.) Mine may never be a household name like his, but I have had a few people ask me to take wedding photos and senior portraits among other types of remembrances. I may not be a world-class photographer,...yet,...but I am better than average. That's something!

Maybe I'm starting to "grow up" as a human being. Apparently, it's wasted effort to try to be the best at everything or even the best at anything. I'm starting to think that is not the purpose of life. If I am consistently the better version of myself and if I consistently help the people in my personal sphere of influence, then my life will have been well-lived.

My Dad used to say something like, "Son, if you go through life and have one true friend, then you are better than most." In some regards that sentiment may appear pessimistic on the surface, but there does seem to be a lasting optimism in a balanced realism.

God Alone knows if I could handle the many pressures that accompany being "famous." Being loved and honored by those, who know me, is the greatest level of satisfaction in life.

Famous people often have tragic personal lives.
The relative unknowns in history often live much more peaceful and healthy, loving lives. I'm sure I am truly blessed.

Fame is a relative thing. For instance as I wrote these lines Jade Amber Jewel asked me to help her load a vacuum cleaner bag into our Miele vacuum cleaner. I opened the box of cleaner bags and asked her to help me take one out, since they were wrapped together as four in one plastic band. At that she figured it out on her own. All I had to do was to be there.

To help, while doing very little, is a great treasure.

That fame is relative, I know,
when living life at best.
Our love with these will surely grow
as pass we ev'ry test.

If relatives bequeath us fame,
then life is loved and whole
For life can never be the same,
when loving fam'ly's goal.

by Jay O'Toole
on August 9th, 2017