I settled on a game called I am a contribution. Unlike success and failure, contribution has no other side. It is not arrived at by comparison.*
(Ben and Roz Zander)

We look but we do not see, because our traditional assessment of abilities distracts us from what is actually there.**
(Ken Robinson)

We all have treasure we can bring out from ourselves and contribute into the world.

It’s actually there, right under our noses, waiting to be noticed. The difference may be looking through our own eyes rather than someone else’s.

What we notice, we can develop, into what Frederick Buechner named our deepest gladness, with which we can meet the world’s greatest need, which may also be right under our nose, Henry Eyring suggesting:

When you meet someone, treat them as if they were in serious trouble and you will be right more than half the time.^

Another thing I love about contribution: when made with a rascally glint in the eye, it creates disequilibrium, inviting something out there to shift or tilt towards better.

The imagination awakens the wildness of the heart.^^

*From Benjamin and Rosamund Zander’s The Art of Possibility;
**From Sir Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds;
^Henry Eyring, quoted in Benjamin Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent;
^^From John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty.