Blog #750: What Are You Leaving in Them?
At first…
This blog was about a frog named Camino.
Then it became a question.
Ready to see where this leads?
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First story…
There’s a little frog that’s lived outside my front door in Sacramento for as long as I can remember.
I call him “Camino.”
Named after the Camino de Santiago walks across Europe.
No…
I don’t think it’s the same frog I first met.
But when I see the little guy by the front door, I always say:
“Hi, little Camino.”
They all get the same name.
Maybe they’re descendants.
Maybe they’re not.
Either way…
They’re all “Camino” to me.
Then yesterday, after a rather lengthy absence…
Camino showed up.
A smile quietly landed in my heart and stayed longer than the moment.
That’s when I realized:
Moments don’t stay where they begin.
Nothing really ends with us.
A smile continues.
A criticism continues.
A kindness continues.
An attitude continues.
Our words don’t end after we leave.
Our actions don’t stop mattering when we walk away.
They travel.
They settle into other people.
People rarely forget how we made them feel.
Because we are always leaving something behind.
We leave emotional weather that lingers.
Every person we meet walks away carrying something of us.
That’s why I want to leave people lighter than I found them.
Not perfect.
Just lighter.
A big lesson from a small teacher named Camino.
Feel.
______
Second story…
Before I go to bed, I ask myself a question:
“What am I going to achieve tomorrow?”
It’s a simple question.
But it changes the moment I stop treating it like a thought…
and start treating it like a commitment.
Thinking is a wish.
Writing is a decision.
So I write it down.
Because thoughts that stay in the head evaporate.
But thoughts written down begin to shape who you become.
Tomorrow doesn’t arrive empty.
It arrives carrying what I placed into it today.
No one can do my stretching for me.
No one can do my walking for me.
No one can live my tomorrow for me.
No one is coming to live my discipline for me.
The responsibility is mine.
Just like yours is yours.
And every day you are doing one of two things:
Building the person you are becoming…
or quietly erasing them.
One choice at a time.
You are rehearsing the person you will meet tomorrow.
Think.
______
So what do these two stories have in common?
More than I first realized.
The frog reminded me of something simple:
We are always leaving something behind.
The bedtime question reminded me of something quieter:
We are always building something within.
That’s what I keep returning to.
We don’t just pass forward kindness.
We don’t just pass forward positivity.
We also pass forward excuses.
We also pass forward negativity.
None of it disappears.
It all goes somewhere.
Into other people.
And into who we are becoming.
This is no longer behavior.
This is identity under construction.
Even our smallest choices don’t stay small for long.
They accumulate.
They decide who we meet in the mirror later.
So pay attention.
Not because life is fragile.
But because life is responsive.
What you keep passing forward—into others, into yourself—doesn’t disappear.
It becomes familiar.
Then it becomes you.
And one day…
You meet what you’ve been building.
See.
S.
EXTRA Thoughts…
We leave behind tension or peace.
We leave behind judgment or grace.
Everything we do leaves something behind.
A feeling.
An attitude.
A memory.
People might forget our words.
But they will remember how they felt around us.
✨
Last week…
A reader described herself as a “ghost.”
Curious?
Read here:
✨
This week…
Pay attention to what you leave behind.
In others.
And in yourself.
Both are becoming familiar.
I’ll see you next Thursday.
Gratitude…
Share with friends, co-workers and everybody else in the world:
