You Don’t Know What You’ve Done

Don’t want to read? Take a listen here.

I’m willing to bet that if you’re reading this (or listening to it!), you have had a positive influence on someone’s life, and that you may have done it unintentionally. 

When I started my MSW, a rabbi at my synagogue asked if I’d teach religious high school one day a week. I said yes, knowing that I had no intention of being a teacher, nor any idea what I was doing. I created a curriculum on “Jewish heroes,” and each week led a conversation about what I thought might be interesting to the students, mostly leaving it open for their thoughts and chance to talk, question, argue, and discuss with someone only a few years older than them.

Remarkably, one of the students in that class – and her parents – have told me repeatedly over the years how much that one class influenced her, giving her permission to engage in community on her own terms. She’s still involved, as are her children. 

There are a couple other individuals over the years who have told me about my unintended (positive!) impact – from former campers to volunteer leaders, other non-profit professionals and volunteers. More often than not, I was unaware that I was influential. It was certainly not my stated goal.

I know that it is not always about intent. I’ve been on the receiving end too. I have my own “list” of those who have guided me, knowingly or not. My late cousin, who was a significant force in my professional life, helped shape the direction of my entire career — but sadly wasn’t around to witness it. 

Influence doesn’t always arrive in large ways. On a smaller but long-lasting scale, a volunteer leader once taught me two simple rules for running a meeting: always position the speaker facing the door, so only she sees who arrives late, and set out fewer chairs than you need, so the room always looks full. I use both of them to this day. I have no idea if that person remembers telling me.

How we show up — in a classroom, at a camp, in a casual conversation, at a committee meeting — is legacy in real time. Not the polished, intentional kind we imagine when we think about the word. The quiet, accumulated, often invisible kind. The kind that compounds in other people’s lives long after we’ve forgotten the moment entirely.

You probably can’t know whose list you’re on. But you can do two things: tell someone they’re on yours — and pay attention to how you’re showing up right now, because someone is watching.

And so I ask, who’s on your list — and have you told them? Is there someone whose influence on you they may not even know about? What’s stopping you from telling them? And how have they they, and you, impacted your legacy?

 

Fondly,

Kari