"The Power Of One"

Does the way people act towards you influence how you feel in any given day? I mean can a good response from anyone make your day brighter, and a negative action cause your day to be gloomy? It works that way for me. Any individual has the ability to set me off or lift me up.

For example, I went to the post office this morning. I took with me some one-sheets I had had printed up with my picture on them and the titles of my books. I was sending them to a bookstore in Sumter, South Carolina where I will be doing a book signing later this month.

I knew from past experience that I was going to mail them in one of those tube like containers they have at the post office. I also knew there would be no address form on the tube so I had better print out my return address and the address of where I was sending it on a piece of paper before I got there.

Anyway I arrived and got the tube, put the one-sheets inside it and moved to the counter. I asked if they had some broad clear tape to cover the address sheet I had prepared as well as to cover the ends of the tube. At previous times when I had sent the same things the desk person had provided tape and made sure the ends were secure and the address too. So I didn't think I was asking for anything out of the ordinary. Boy was I wrong!

We don't have any tape to use for that unless you are sending it priority, I was told. Then the person waiting on me added that I should have taken care of all that before I came to the post office. When I explained that I was buying the tube, she said then I also should have bought tape. I mean it was like I was asking for free stamps or something.

You know the funny thing is what angered me was not that I was asked to buy a piece of scotch tape, but how it was done. It was with a tone that said I was the dumbest human on the planet. Or at least that is how it sounded to me. 

I left the post office fuming. It put me in a mood that has lasted all day long. The "power of one" has worked again. One person caused my pretty good day to take a turn for the worse.

Another example of "the power of one" occurred when I went to Biloxi, Mississippi last week. I was in the casino playing at my favorite video poker machine when I looked down and saw that my cell phone was missing. The carrier I fasten to my belt was still there but the cell phone was gone. I panicked. How do you cancel a cell phone and how many calls to the Orient can be made before that happens!

As I was fretting and fuming I saw one of the people who you call when you have a problem with a machine. I went over to her and asked where I would go to see if anyone had turned in a cell phone.

She responded by asking me what kind of cell phone I was talking about. I replied it was silver with one of those flip-up tops. She then asked the company who made it and I replied Verizon. She reached in her pocket and asked me if it looked like the one she was holding. I replied that it did, and she said well this must be yours.

She handed it over and it was mine! She grinned from ear to ear and I grinned from ear to ear. She said someone had turned it in to her about ten minutes prior to me coming over. I was amazed that someone was honest enough to turn it in, and that I was lucky enough to ask the person who it had been turned in to.

The honesty of that person made my day. It was the "power of one."

What these two incidents brought home to me is that we are "the power of one" in a lot of people's lives. The way we treat others can affect how their day goes. I am going to try to make my power a power for good, because I know how it feels when the power is bad.

 

 

 

 

 

©2005 Jackie K. Cooper

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