Wicked Good Things!

It shouldn’t faze me anymore, but still it does!  In the school I work in, each time we have a meeting we follow a protocol that encourages people to come up with and share some “good things” before we start with the business portion of the meeting.  These “good things” can be just about anything and can involve personal or professional things, places or people even.  We usually share two or three good things at the start of each meeting or luncheon. 

My good things are usually fairly big if I can come up with one – a successful second surgery, one of the kids did something great, and so on.

A few weeks ago the High School Hockey team won the 3A State championship game and showed to the world with a resounding roar that we each make a difference, no matter how small.  Our team wasn’t slated to win it all – in fact we were seeded 4^th at the Regional tournament that we had to place first or second in to get to the State game (we won that tournament too), but we had such hard working kids and such passionate kids, coaches and parents that we took all the trophies home!  It ended up being one of my “good things” at work before a meeting and I really didn’t think much about it being a big deal – I am already on to the next season. 

This week I got a call from one of our contractors that we drill water wells for and she congratulated me on that game and for that win.  I asked how she knew about it and she said that “It was on Chad’s life list at church”.  Well – Chad is my husband’s name but he doesn’t really go to church and neither do I so I had to ask her what church and Chad who?  She said – Oh I thought it was your Chad and she told me the name of the church.  She said that winning that game was on the Chad at churches “life list” like a bucket list item!  As we talked I realized that it was our Coach Chad who had put that out on the life list and I marveled at how something that is merely a “good thing” for me was a bucket list item for him!  Win that one game.  And work hard enough with a group of kids who all have to come together into the perfect storm of a team to do it!

How many times has something that seemed a simple win for me meant so much more to someone else?  A bucket list item.  I know it was on my older son’s bucket list and he won’t get to cross that one off.  Probably a lot of the kids he skated with had that as a bucket list item and won’t get to cross that off.  My youngest son has already been able to cross it off.

Now sometimes when I am thinking of “good things” before I go into a meeting, I stop and think about what it means to have accomplished that and if it should have had more impact on my life.  Is it someone’s life list item?  How can I show that it is not taken for granted and appreciate the import of this item that is a bucket list item for someone that I know?  Or that I don’t know?

My bucket list is fairly short and probably has on it some of the usual things that most people have on theirs – write that book – see that place- meet that famous person.  For some people the bucket list includes this “Win that one game”!  And that’s a Wicked Good Thing!