Day 20

Today's favor was about encouragement. I received a request asking me to encourage a friend of a friend to attend a special conference. On the surface the Favor seems simple, yet upon digging deeper a more complex nature revealed itself to me.

What does it really mean to encourage another human being? Does it mean to offer them unconditional support; does it mean to help them look beyond their perceived limitations or does it mean to allow the person to be? Can encouragement be silent in its demands and only require another to look at him or herself without judgment? These were just some of the many questions I struggled with when exploring how to accomplish this favor.

It occurred to me that genuine encouragement may only be achieved when we do not take the outcome of another's choice personally. In other words, we need to separate ourselves from a specific desired outcome and instead be open to what the other wants to happen. I realized I could not grant this favor in the way originally requested. The only way to truly encourage another was to see the individual for who he is and not what others project upon him. I did not arrive to this conclusion until late into the discussion with the friend. I paused after hearing his resistance to attending the conference and allowed my mind to be open to what he said.

Our meeting was no longer about getting him to do something the other friend asked, it evolved into giving him the freedom to be. To be or not to be, that is the real question as Shakespeare wisely noted, and I recognized the importance of telling this man who sat next to me that all he needed to do was to show his friend the real him. He needed to stop trying to live-up to his friend's expectations and to instead share his actual self. The favor was about encouraging him to be him rather than trying to get him to change his position in favor of the requested favor. In the end, I became aware encouragement means to allow another to live their life by their own intention rather than by our expectations. Whether he goes or does not go to the conference is irrelevant; all that matters is that he reveals his true self to others without fear of judgment.