Past, Present, Future - There is a story there

(Originally posted at Absolution Mediation)

Where did you come from? Where are you now? Where are you heading?

This weekend I had the privilege to read over the story of my great-grandparents journey as they lived in the Netherlands and later moved to Canada. Amazing people! Such courage and determination they showed!

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Then I read about my Opa (who is one of the role models of my life) and found out some amazing things about him. One of my opa's hobbies as a child/teen was raising pigeons. Now, pigeons, of course, needed to be fed, and feed, of course, cost money! So this is what he did;

For paying his feed bill for the pigeons he helped a local milkman on Saturday mornings by pouring milk liter by liter into customers' containers. They went from house to house, pushing and pulling a tri-bike with a large wagon loaded with milk bottles. - Excerpt from the Family Story

This story I think speaks volumes for my family. It speaks to taking initiative, working hard, and enjoying life!

This weekend I had the opportunity to explore the past, to better understand myself through my family's history. This has helped me understand part of who I am today, and who I want to be tomorrow. It is a part of self-awareness, looking inward to know ourselves.

Ask yourself the big questions, find out where you came from, know who you are in various situations, find out your hot-buttons/triggers, and be confident in who you are.

What story has impacted your life?

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Comment by Nicole Bohe on July 24, 2011 at 6:29pm: It's interesting that you have such a resource called the "Family Story" - that might be a rarity nowadays. Can you imagine your family in 50 years scouring hard drives and finding a long-lost Facebook or Twitter page. While such resources are like a family story today, it provides only snapshots of our lives. Have we lost the longer narratives that provide a further analysis of our story? For example, imagine Facebook in your Opa's time - maybe he updates his status to "Mmmm, milk does a body good" and everyone knew he was working with the milkman pouring milk. We speak in so much "code" in our records of our daily lives. It will therefore be fascinating to see how, or if, this translates to a story for future generations to understand.

But I digress. Stories about family/ancestors are always moving and usually interesting. It seems like you've found a nice inspirational boost! Seems like a nice angle to address in summertime, which brings about times of reflection for me as I enjoy the nice weather. Hopefully you continue to be inspired by your loved ones and pay that inspiration forward to others (-;