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The Gifts We’re Already Carrying · Living & Learning with Aundria McMillan Humphrey

0:01
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Living & Learning with Aundria McMillan Humphrey.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: This is episode 39, The Gifts We Are Already Carrying.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting upstairs tonight and my son is back home.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: And downstairs I can hear his friends' voices, laughter, the doorbell keeps ringing.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, they're happy to have him home too.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: And as I sit here listening to all that life happening downstairs,
0:39
SPEAKER_00: I find myself smiling because sometimes gratitude doesn't arrive with the band.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it sounds like laughter coming from another room.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it sounds like a doorbell.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it is simply the realization that someone I love is home.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: And I almost missed it.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Not the sound, of course.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: They're making entirely too much noise for that.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: But the gift of it.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: And that got me thinking about how much of what is precious in our lives
1:23
SPEAKER_00: that is hiding in plain sight.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: We go looking for reasons to be grateful as
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SPEAKER_00: though gratitude requires something special to happen.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: A piece of good news,
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SPEAKER_00: a prayer answered, a problem solved, a beautiful sunset that stops us in our tracks.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: And yes, all of those things are worthy of our gratitude.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: But lately, I've been thinking about the ordinary things we've stopped noticing.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: The familiar voice,
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SPEAKER_00: the friend who calls,
1:56
SPEAKER_00: The body that got us out of bed this morning,
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SPEAKER_00: even if it complained a little while doing it.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: The food on the table,
2:04
SPEAKER_00: the old photographs, the song that takes us somewhere we thought we had forgotten.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: The people downstairs, the life already happening.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: I recently began gathering with a small group of people in what we call the gratitude circle.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: We come together each week simply to make space for gratitude and reflection.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'm discovering or perhaps rediscovering that gratitude isn't just about saying thank you.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude is about paying attention.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: It is noticing.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: And when we notice something else happens,
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SPEAKER_00: we begin to see how much of what we carry was given to us.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Not things.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about the invisible inheritances, but the courage somebody modeled for us.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: The wisdom somebody offered that we didn't understand until 20 years later.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: The person who believed in us before we quite knew how to believe in ourselves.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: The teacher who opened a door.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: The friend who sat beside us when there was absolutely nothing useful to say.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: The mother or grandmother whose words somehow still come out of our mouths.
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SPEAKER_00: The people who taught us how to work, how to laugh, how to survive, how to begin again.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Some of what we carry from people whose names we know,
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SPEAKER_00: and some of it came from people we've never met.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: People who lived and struggled and sacrificed so that possibilities could exist
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SPEAKER_00: for us that did not exist for them.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly, gratitude becomes something much larger than appreciation.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: It becomes recognition.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: I recognize what I have been given.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: And that brings me to something else I've been thinking about a lot lately.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Legacy.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: We tend to speak about legacy as though it belongs to the end of a life.
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SPEAKER_00: What will I leave behind?
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SPEAKER_00: What will I be remembered for?
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SPEAKER_00: What will remain when I'm gone?
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SPEAKER_00: But I don't think legacy begins when we leave.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: I think we begin living our legacies every single day.
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SPEAKER_00: And maybe gratitude and legacy are connected in a way I hadn't really thought about before.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Gratitude looks backward and says, I recognize what I've been given.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Legacy looks forward and asks, what will I do with that?
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I like that question because I'm still here.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: And if you're listening to me, so are you.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to wait for somebody to tell us our stories after we're gone.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: We are telling them now by the way we live, by what we choose to pass along.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: Every time you encourage somebody, you are living your legacy.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Every time you tell the truth about something you've learned, you are living your legacy.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Every time you make room for somebody else to be fully themselves.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Every time you create something, forgive something.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Teach something, begin something, or begin again.
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SPEAKER_00: You are passing something forward.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: And those of us who've lived a good many years have accumulated quite a lot to pass on.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: We've made mistakes.
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SPEAKER_00: Lord knows I have.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: We have survived things we once thought might undo us.
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SPEAKER_00: We have loved and lost.
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SPEAKER_00: We have changed our minds.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: We have discovered that some things we were absolutely certain about
6:25
SPEAKER_00: at 40 look quite different from where we stand right now.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And if we're paying attention,
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SPEAKER_00: all of that becomes wisdom, not wisdom to hoard, wisdom to live and to share.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: That to me is a part of ageless living.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Growing older isn't only about adding years to the life we have already lived.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: There are still choices to make.
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SPEAKER_00: There are still things to create.
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SPEAKER_00: There are still people to love.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: There are still doors to open.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: There are still gifts in our hands that haven't yet been given.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps one of the great privileges of living a long life is
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SPEAKER_00: that we have lived long enough to recognize How much we have received.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: And we're still here to decide what we want to do with it.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: So perhaps the question isn't what will I leave behind?
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SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the better question is, what am I passing along while I am still here?
7:40
SPEAKER_00: And tonight I don't need to look very far from my answer to gratitude.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting upstairs.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: My son is home.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: His friends are downstairs.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: And now and then their voices rise.
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SPEAKER_00: Somebody laughs.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: The doorbell rings again.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Life is happening right beneath my feet.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Nothing extraordinary has happened except I noticed.
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SPEAKER_00: And maybe that is where gratitude begins.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that is where legacy begins, too.
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SPEAKER_00: Noticing what has been given to us,
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SPEAKER_00: recognizing that we are carrying it,
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SPEAKER_00: and then, while we are still here, giving something back.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: This has been Living & Learning with Aundria McMillan Humphrey.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening, and I will hopefully Have you here with me again next Monday.