Giving Back...

"If not you; then who...

If not now; then when..."

I don't recall exactly when I heard these words or from whom they are attributed to, but they have stayed with me. Another quote that has invited an adventure of another kind into my life.

We all come up with ideas and goals and such. Then we typically make one of those 'lists'... I have made my share of many of these. M. Bane wrote: "The List...will take on a life of its own...will change everything it touches, take me places I'd only imagined. It will allow me to reach out and touch...something. Something desirable; something mythical...". But as JP MacKinnon also wrote: "A life list is, in the end, nothing more than a tool to look back on our lives and consider how we spent our brief moments on Earth. And what if, in those final breaths you realize - I never gave anything back".

Both of these authors are also adventurers whom I've read and even quoted in the Muse. I've also reflected long on what they might be inviting us to think about...

The 'list' always has room, even for a small act of giving back. Examples of the acts themselves can be too numerous to count like sharing a story or a bit of experience, leading a group of novices, putting some effort into a project other than our own, or as was said to me: "If you take that stone, you must give something back". I guess I took that very literally...

DSD