Twenty-Two

Every single year, on this date, I am caught up with my thoughts. I take a lot of time during this day to reflect, to remember, and to pause the busyness of life to comprehend the gravity of this day, and I’ll admit today I don’t feel like I had done that up until the moment I read a friend’s post in an internal work community. Adam Buell Prosci CPCU ChFC CLU caught me off guard a bit as he wrote about the real motivation behind Simon Sinek’s book, Leaders Eat Last. ?I wasn’t aware of the story behind this book until I watched the video my colleague Adam posted, and I was grounded in a few things that were shared. I thought about why every 9/11, even 22 years later, is a moment for us all to pause, think, and remember.? 22 years ago, we woke up not knowing this world would be different and went about our daily routines as if it was just another day. The world according to us continued to spin around the bubble of our existence. Little did we know in those wee hours of our morning, the entire world would be different just minutes later.?My friend’s post shook me back to that reality through the following video. I hope it does the same for you. ?I've shared a few of the lessons I learned from this video below.

Service and sacrifice matter in everything we do.

This statement stands on its own, but in the shadow of a field in Somerset County Pennsylvania where Flight 93 was forcibly crashed, it is a statement that means something very different. The phone calls from Flight 93 from the passengers to their families, explaining the very difficult choice they had made to sacrifice their lives to save countless others can still be heard in my ears as I contemplate the words above. Serving others, and sacrificing for others matters in everything we do. Those United Airlines passengers knew it and acted out of pure love for others that they did not even know or had ever met. Those passengers knew they had to do the hard things that mattered to make sure that others would not perish because of the cowardly acts of angry terrorists hell-bent on destruction.

I don’t know that many of us are prepared for that kind of service and sacrifice in what we do every day, but it is a poignant reminder that giving of ourselves to something that serves others is so powerful. Imagine a world or what might have happened had Flight 93 been able to continue its path and the passengers did not intervene. There have been countless novels and stories written about what “might have happened,” One thing is very clear about this kind of service and sacrifice, it requires you to forget about yourself or your selfish gain. It is evidenced in the words of Todd Beamer, knowing at 32 his life was going to end, and making the decision to rally the passengers in the revolt that stopped this flight from killing so many others. He said in his final known words, “Are you ready guys? Let’s roll.” Simon Sinek’s book, the inspiration for the words that are flowing here today, reminds us that “The true price of leadership is the willingness to place the needs of others above your own.” Todd Beamer’s words demonstrated that. He put others before himself and rallied others to that same cause. We can honor those passengers of Flight 93 who made the ultimate sacrifice by caring for and serving others before ourselves in our lives.

Focusing on a unity of spirit above our opinions is one of the most powerful things we can do in this world today.

The world we lived in post-9/11 was the world in which I raised my children. I remember the days following 9/11 being a time of confusion, frustration, anger, and a lot of emotions. We all were scared and we didn’t know what was going to happen next. Our human experience bound us together though, and we found ways to see beyond our own opinions and just try to understand each other. I am not stating that fringe contingencies didn’t exist amongst the populace of the US that said and did some horrific things to people in this country post 9/11, and I am not justifying their behaviors by writing this. What I am trying to convey is the sense that the post-9/11 world brought us all back to a commonplace, and people were able to come together and understand a mission that needed to be accomplished despite our own opinions. And it’s in my still moments, on this day, that I find the time to remember the spirit of humanity that emerged from the darkest day. Humans helped humans through this tragedy, and we leaned on each other in ways we never thought possible. We were bound by this moment together, and we didn’t think about our differences. This country stood together at the brink of mass destruction and chose not to give in to our basest instincts. We joined hands, we rolled up our sleeves, and we got to work rebuilding our fractured existence together. That was hard work, and it was difficult to find the reserves in our emptied souls, but somehow, we found it.

That unity of spirit is desperately needed today in a world where we are barraged with media and voices that attempt to divide us.

We must do better and be better. I cannot say I don’t struggle with getting caught up in the media propaganda which is purposefully designed to point out our differences in a way that incites anger in us. I am just as guilty of this action, but on this day, I am shocked back to the moments post 9/11 when I felt closer to my fellow countrymen and women than I ever have in my life. We have a duty, and we have an oath to do more to make the world better around all of us. I am challenging all of us to honor the spirits of the almost 3,000 individuals who passed from this life on 9/11, and the countless others who died afterward defeating terrorism afterward, by searching for a unity of spirit with others. Ignore the noise of this world that attempts to divide us as a people. I don’t care if you are Republican, Democrat, Independent, or Socialist, the great thing about America is our uncanny ability to reinvent ourselves and try to make ourselves better after our most challenging moments. Search for that. Be an example of that. I am trying my best to do just that, and on this day, I remember that mission of unity with others more than anything.

Our focus today must be on going on. ?

I hope you watched the video above. Within it, you noted the story Simon Sinek tells about his experiences traveling back from Afghanistan post-9/11 with a fallen soldier on board, and how he was asked by a General to talk about his experiences once he returned from spending time with the troops there. Simon Sinek, a professional speaker, was so overcome with raw emotion and couldn’t speak when he began telling the story about flying back to Ramstein, Germany with a flag-draped casket. The video tells the story, but in that incredibly emotional moment, the 4 Star General in the back of the room said to Simon, Go on. What I was completely shaken by in that video was that precise statement. It's such a simple statement, but it just hit very differently for me today.

GO ON

We can't stop. We must go on because those who decided to sign up and serve our country post-9/11 are those who carried on in the most miraculous and beautiful ways. I’ve talked about the surviving families, and my feelings in other 9/11 articles I have written in the past, but I just was moved by my friend Adam’s words to remind us all to move from a place of kindness, mercy, of care, of love for our fellow man. Hold space for those in your life when you can, stand at attention, and care first before you judge. Adam shared his personal experiences from the military which I won’t reiterate here, but I am going to try my hardest to live up to the calling he placed in front of us today. So thank you, Adam. Thank you for understanding service more than I ever will.

Agree or disagree with our response to the 9/11 event, you cannot doubt the service members who stepped up and sacrificed for this nation afterward. They served this country with dignity and honor, and so many of them passed from this earth as they fought back against the evils of terrorism around the world. They did that because of the thing that Simon pointed out in his video—love. Those who serve, love their country, and their fellow service members so deeply. They give, and give, and always are at the ready when this country needs them, and they do it from a place of love. I am taken aback by how much I owe those who sacrificed their lives to serve this nation post-9/11. I can’t repay that. I can’t give enough to repay that. I can only encourage them to go on, just as that General encouraged Simon. I can only work to model that sense of love, duty, and service in the things I do. We can learn so much from those who go on in this life pushed on by the love that binds us all as humans. Outside the shadow of the Twin Towers, twenty-two years later, we all go on, and one of the ways we can do that is to serve those who serve others first. That’s our privilege, and we should never take it for granted.

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