As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I am really taking notice in the little things that I may ordinarily just take for granted or not even consciously notice. It’s been doing a lot to my inner-being and radically changing who I am and how I think.
As most of you know, I was involved in remodeling my home office last week. It was a simple endeavor that was to be very inexpensive and only take 2-3 days. However, it went about 3x over budget (still very cheap in most people’s minds though) and about a week to complete. One unexpected thing that happened was that a new door didn’t fit and had to be cut to size. I have a saw for this, but it’s in a storage unit so I decided to call a friend of mine that lives about 2 minutes away and see if I could use his saw. The conversation went something like this:
me: Hey, what’s up
my friend: nothing much
me: can i get you to give me a hand with something for a couple of minutes?
my friend: sure, i’ll jump in the car right now and head over.
I then proceeded to explain that I wanted to take my door over to his place and make a cut with his saw. That way I could make on trip and be done, rather than borrow the saw, bring it home, make the cut, then take it back to him. It would have been easy to lose sight of something huge in that phone conversation had I not been listening for it. Did you notice how my friend immediate was ready to jump in his car and come over to help? He didn’t even ask me what I needed help with or anything. If I am honest here, I’d have to admit that rarely would I be that willing to help someone out. Usually, I’d say something like, “Yes, I can help, but how long will it take?” or “Maybe…what did you need help with?” It turns out that my friend only had a few minutes to help as he had to get ready to go to a party that night, but he never said a word about it until I saw him. So, he dropped what he was doing and gave up some time cleaning up and getting ready for the party in order to give me a hand with my door. Rather than even have me pick up the saw, he drove it over and made the cut for me at my place.
Ultimately, this is what friends do for other friends, but this instance of selflessness really made an impact on me. It caused me to realize that as small as this act may seem, it’s something that I do less of than I’d like to admit. I need to be more of a selfless friend.
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A true friend is one who reaches out beyond the self to connect with another, in love, compassion,and service. You are very fortunate to have this friend. I also love the Polls on the right.
Theresa Ip Froehlich, Certified Life Coach
http://www.theresaipfroehlich.com
http://theresaipfroehlich.wordpress.com
Theresa: Thanks so much for your reply and your kind comments!