The Power of Every Given Moment

Is it just ME, or do you, too, look back and beg to have certain moments in your life back – just for a moment?

I suppose we all do.  What would we have done differently?  How might different choices made in any given moment have changed the course of our lives?

One hundred years ago, on February 4, 1913, a woman by the name of Rosa Parks was born.  Forty-two years later, Rosa changed the course of history – not just for herself, not just for a race – but for a nation – and I dare say the world.

Rosa boarded a Montgomery, Alabama public bus.  She chose a seat directly behind the 10 rows reserved for whites; it was 1955.

When asked (told?) to move and give her seat to a white man, she refused.  She and two other women were arrested.   Years later, Rosa, herself described that moment as spontaneous and not premeditated.  Predestined, perhaps!

In that moment, life changed for us all.  I am not just speaking about the civil rights movement being catapulted forward, I am referring to the fact that it was a woman who stood her ground and spoke her heart. 

Rosa Parks became the face of integration and changing segregation laws known as ”Jim Crow Laws”.  That was just the beginning.

Ms. Parks was the recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Rosa died on October 24, 2005; she was the first woman to lie-in-state in the Capitol of the United States of America.

What Rosa did for women was to encourage us to follow our hearts; they are the pulse, the lifeline of the world.  She taught us to speak up, to stand our ground and to express ourselves.   Her ride in 1955 on a Montgomery, Alabama public bus changed the journey and the destination for every woman and forever.

Rosa taught us about choices.  The right to choose, the ability to choose, and the reasons we make the choices we make.  True women of leadership aren’t born in an innate ability to only and always make the right choices but in being accountable for the results of all the choices they make.  That’s leadership, integrity, responsibility.

Weakness does not come from making bad choices; it comes from refusing to make choices at all.  

Marianne Williamson wrote about “playing small”; it serves no-one, it teaches no-one.  Don’t confuse that with “playing it safe”.  Refusing to make choices or forcing others to choose for you isn’t safe at all; in fact, I think it’s rather   dangerous.

  

For all reading this in relative real time, Rosa Park was a woman of our times.  She is not a page in an old history book.  She remains the vibrant and beautiful face of  courage a woman took in declaring her rightful place, not just on a bus but in life; she made that choice easier for every woman. 

Own your life.  Make choices. Make mistakes.  Make new choices.

So, IS it just me, or do you, too, now see that courage, strength, leadership do not come from going backwards; the come only in having the courage to choose to move forward.

Thank you, Miss Parks