‘[I]t is important to see the patient as the hero of a drama and not to see him as a summation of complexes.  And, actually, every human being is the hero of a drama. … Here is a person born with certain gifts, and usually he fails, and his life is a tremendous struggle to make something out of which he is horn with, firing against tremendous handicaps.’*

Everyone is potentially a large world to share with others.  It’s only selfishness or pride that causes this world to shrink, leaving it only large enough to support one person.  When we journey outwards, though, towards something beyond ourselves, the world that we are grows larger and we make other world flourish too.

Paradoxically, this is about valuing ourselves properly and finding our capacity to value others, too.  When we overvalue or undervalue ourselves, we struggle to value others.

”Wholeness is not found through receiving, but through giving.  This is why wholeness and generosity are inseparably linked.’**

Everyone lives an interesting life.

David Marquet writes about the “everyday superhero within,” asking how great it would be if we could ‘create an environment where people feel they can embrace the superhero within and achieve great things”^

These environments may be very simple – one person offering to another the opportunity to explore their dreams and talents.  Others are more complex – people finding each other and creating spaces for themselves and others to create and make their hero’s story.

Erich Fromm, whose words lead in today, sees rightly how this is a struggle, not glamorous, and Jonathan Gottschall highlights this further when he writes of things stories have in common: ‘if there is no knotty problem, there is no story.’^^

Here are four journeys of letting go and letting come for this big world or hero’s story living.  We must journey from consumption to contribution, from transaction to trust, from isolation to community, and from scarcity to abundance.*^

(*From Erich Fromm’s The Art of Listening.)
(**From Erwin McManus’s Uprising.)
(^David Marquet, from 99U’s Make Your Mark.)
(^^From Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal.)
(*^From Nipun Mehta’s TEDx talk Designing For Generosity.)