Recently I was given some tough news to swallow. Tens of thousands of dollars in video equipment was stolen from my company — and it was almost certainly an inside job.
As you might imagine, this brought on a wide range of emotions. But after coming to terms with what happened, I felt pity more than anything. Pity because whoever did this is obviously not in a good place. No one comes into this world wanting to do harm. Bad habits and bad intentions are learned. People find themselves in tough situations. They find ways to justify that what they’re doing is ok, and they choose to take the easy way out. Stealing is easy, working hard is not.
Does this make what happened ok? Absolutely not. But contempt is not the solution.
I believe that nobody is beyond redemption. Making the world a better place means giving the people the opportunity to do better. Turning your back on someone is easy. Changing attitudes and behaviors is hard.
That doesn’t mean that I’m willing to let what happened just slide. There will be consequences for stealing from my work family. But I genuinely hope that the person who did this can get on the right track, and take the necessary steps to turn their life around.
It’s on us to teach what is right.
I would happily give the person who stole from me the resources and guidance they need to improve their life for the better. Because at the end of the day, good intentions and positive actions are all that we have to combat the evil in this world. A big reason that I started this movement is because I want to give people the courage to do what is hard — to have difficult conversations with themselves which will lead to personal growth and solution based thinking.
Every morning when you wake up, you get to decide who you want to be. Who you were yesterday and who you are today doesn’t determine who you’ll be tomorrow. In order to grow, you have to choose to stop running — to stop choosing the easy way out. Doing right by yourself is tough. There will be times that you want to quit, and return to bad habits. But that’s when you need to push yourself even harder.
Be the change that you want to see in the world! Lead by example, help people in need, and always do good.