Thursday 13th December 2007, 15:50What shall we give for Christmas this year?
Almost since the end of summer my children have been writing lists to Santa to make sure all of their requests are noted in full. For my six year old it seems to change each week from a Yu-Gi-Oh Egyptian God card set to a Nintendo Wii or a snooker table. For my thirteen year old daughter an iTouch, becomes a iPhone and then a new pair of jeans. And so as the big day gets closer and Santa needs to start to fill his sack in readiness for that sleigh ride in the sky I have been thinking about what I should give for Christmas this year.
Maybe I should support a child in a third country, maybe I should replace the sofa, a slow cooker, a donation to a local charity or perhaps some time over Christmas at our local homeless shelter.
As I was thinking and reflecting of my own personal situation I started to think about how lucky we are in A4e. Yes we have great jobs and security and enjoy our work but more importantly I think we are lucky because we get to give gifts to people every day. I believe one of the best gifts you can give someone is the gift of “Hope”. In the wonderful book “searching for the meaning of life” the author describes the terrible atrocities which he saw every day in the concentration camps during the Second World War. And one of his reflections was that people could cope with these most inhumane circumstances as long as they could hold on to a thread of “hope”. In most cases nothing could be done to ease the horror of life in a concentration camp, but if the individual could hold on to one last breath of hope, it seemed to give them the inner strength to keep their body and soul together to live for another day. Conversely the strongest of humans would crumple and loose their foothold if that thread of hope was taken away.
I believe one of the ways in which we restore our customers self esteem and reactivate their aspirations, is when we are able to switch back on a sense of hope that maybe there is job out there for me. Maybe there is an employer who will see the value I can bring to their organisation. Even before the job appears and the employer makes that magical offer we see our clients lives transformed once they have restored a sense of hope to their lives that maybe things are about to get better for me.
So this Christmas I think we should give the same gift as we give everyday. Let’s push the boat out and try to give the gift of “hope” to as many people as we can.
Thanks
Roy
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