Your Life Message

“Your life is your message to the world.” This quote was posted on a church sign that I saw recently.

A quick Google search revealed that a very similar quote has been floating around the internet that says, “Your life is your message to the world. Make sure it’s inspiring.” The International Indian leader and peace activist Mahatma Ghandi is famous for the quote: “My life is my message.” And the Apostle Paul told the New Testament Church, “you are an epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men.” (2 Corinthians 3:2)

Obviously, considering and contemplating your life message is quite common and spans many different faiths, ages, and genres.

But what exactly is a life message?

Your Life Message is what others see and perceive about you based on your life actions and attitudes.

Notice, your life message doesn’t have anything to do with what you say or intentionally project. For example, I can blog all day about being a writer and Grief Recovery Specialist, that is part of the life message that I want to project. And that is what I want others to perceive about me. But if I don’t write (action) and I don’t show an empathetic and caring attitude, my life message will not line up with what you perceive about me.

Your life message and mine speaks to the heart, whether we intend it to or not. Where we spend our time and place our priorities reflects our values and writes the pages of our life message, our epistle.

I wonder sometimes if the life message we think we are putting out on our neighbors' front step to read with their morning coffee and what they actually read are in sync?

I also wonder if we provide different life messages/ epistles prepared for our different social groups to read?

For example, is your life message at work the same as it is at church? Are you loving and caring in both environments? Or would your coworkers say your life message is terse and impatient, while your church family says something altogether different? Or vice versa?

This is something I reflect on regularly. I also try to do a self-check to see if I am being real with myself and those around me – no matter which of my social groups I am with.

Consider the life messages of those around you. Take a mental inventory. When you think of “Joe”, your bosses’ son, what feeling, emotions and perceptions come to mind? What about “Sue”, the cashier at the grocery store down the street? Or “Mary Ellyn”, your sister-in-law?

If you really pause and contemplate, you will realize that the each of the people around you have a life message that speaks clearly.

And so do you.

And so do I.

With the holidays just around the corner, many of us will be around family members – each with their own very unique life messages. From the grandmother who pinches cheeks and always buys everyone ugly sweaters to the uncle who drinks too much and can get obnoxious.

Yet we love the more, perhaps, we only tolerate them. But either way, their life message is heard – and read.

And so is ours.

What do you want your life message to be? How do you think you are doing with being read accurately?