The Wind Under Your Wings 

The Wind under your wings 

.“You are not a bird?” Neither am I! However I’m pretty sure part of you is an angel, you have dreams yearning to take off, projects you would like to see through, inspiration and kindness you hope to vibe out...You long for an open door, a helping hand, or some justified recognition, a platform for you to shine, some wind under your wings, right?! “Be someone’s last man standing, be the wind under his wings, propel him to soar”, that’s a line from a speech I wrote for a public figure talking about followers relationship and social media. Is that kind-regard what you have in mind when you follow someone or want someone to follow you? Or is that what you would like to be for anyone getting in contact with you, online or offline? 

Oftentimes, what we see online is we all like the same posts, and in real life doing what others do, such as going to seminars titled “How to think out of the box” J Lots of times people succumb to conformity and peer pressure, don’t want to take the lead! Or sometimes you suppose someone might not need your support!

There was the story of the lottery winner in a small town in Canada, where everyone knows everyone else and they marry and reproduce among each other since forever. One day the cousin of the story teller’s ex-gf won lottery and since then nobody ever talked to him in the village, why? Because everyone thought he should be the one who took the first step toward them! My question: why don’t you talk to him? Because my girlfriend at that time didn’t want me to! I didn’t follow up the story, whether this man finally figured out that these people would never be his friends anymore and moved away or the newly sprouted coaches dropped by and help them reconcile… On social media, especially on Linkedin, you can see people LIKE the same posts, or they don’t LIKE some posts until others do. Part of it is due to the special feature that on Linkedin when you react to someone’s publications, automatically it’s shown to your connections. I can understand the enormous peer pressure for those who work in a corporation with clear hierarchies. Most people have much less back thoughts to give Instagram LIKEs. It’s like at the same time as people put back their clothes on Linkedin, they have dressed back worries and stress as well.  

Oftentimes we also suppose some people don’t deserve support or kindness for some “reasons”, it can be inadvertent, or out of jealousy or cynicism. Some people are deprived of empathy and kindness, or even basic human decency! I remember once I read an article on the suicide of a minister’s wife here in France, with a picture of the deceased. A comment below the article made me feel sad, it said: “Haha, she has a nice coat!”  They couldn’t spare her that nonchalance even after her death. Maybe she would still be alive if a random person said the right things at the right time. Even the seemingly unlikely need your support sometimes, you never know what they are going through! I would say, anyone deserves kind regards, blissful wind under their wings!

With social media, the public space is democratized, I feel lucky that as an ordinary person I can have a thought, an idea that I want to share and it can be immediately published and reach thousands of people. We can be the wind under someone else’s wings and share his/her light, in a certain sense, we all live in mini galaxies on social media. We are all stars not just dust, some are smaller, and some are bigger. Are you feeling like the only shining star in your gigantic galaxy, all you see is darkness? How creepy that might be? Have you wondered if it’s because you haven’t been supportive enough for others to shine? I know the best reward I ever got on social media was once I probably saved the life of a young man in Taiwan when he was suicidal just by listening to him and saying some kind words. Since then, even when smarter people tell me that I’m wasting a lot of time on social media etc., I still stick around…It doesn’t take you much to be supportive on social media to someone, it’s just like keeping a door open for the next person is much easier for everyone than shutting the door right behind. Isn’t that beautiful if we are the wind under one another’s wings?

“You are not a bird?” Neither am I! However I’m pretty sure part of you is an angel, you have dreams yearning to take off, projects you would like to see through, inspiration and kindness you hope to vibe out...You long for an open door, a helping hand, or some justified recognition, a platform for you to shine, some wind under your wings, right?! “Be someone’s last man standing, be the wind under his wings, propel him to soar”, that’s a line from a speech I wrote for a public figure talking about followers relationship and social media. Is that kind-regard what you have in mind when you follow someone or want someone to follow you? Or is that what you would like to be for anyone getting in contact with you, online or offline?

Oftentimes, what we see online is we all like the same posts, and in real life doing what others do, such as going to seminars titled “How to think out of the box” J Lots of times people succumb to conformity and peer pressure, don’t want to take the lead! Or sometimes you suppose someone might not need your support!

There was the story of the lottery winner in a small town in Canada, where everyone knows everyone else and they marry and reproduce among each other since forever. One day the cousin of the story teller’s ex-gf won lottery and since then nobody ever talked to him in the village, why? Because everyone thought he should be the one who took the first step toward them! My question: why don’t you talk to him? Because my girlfriend at that time didn’t want me to! I didn’t follow up the story, whether this man finally figured out that these people would never be his friends anymore and moved away or the newly sprouted coaches dropped by and help them reconcile… On social media, especially on Linkedin, you can see people LIKE the same posts, or they don’t LIKE some posts until others do. Part of it is due to the special feature that on Linkedin when you react to someone’s publications, automatically it’s shown to your connections. I can understand the enormous peer pressure for those who work in a corporation with clear hierarchies. Most people have much less back thoughts to give Instagram LIKEs. It’s like at the same time as people put back their clothes on Linkedin, they have dressed back worries and stress as well.  

Oftentimes we also suppose some people don’t deserve support or kindness for some “reasons”, it can be inadvertent, or out of jealousy or cynicism. Some people are deprived of empathy and kindness, or even basic human decency! I remember once I read an article on the suicide of a minister’s wife here in France, with a picture of the deceased. A comment below the article made me feel sad, it said: “Haha, she has a nice coat!”  They couldn’t spare her that nonchalance even after her death. Maybe she would still be alive if a random person said the right things at the right time. Even the seemingly unlikely need your support sometimes, you never know what they are going through! I would say, anyone deserves kind regards, blissful wind under their wings!

With social media, the public space is democratized, I feel lucky that as an ordinary person I can have a thought, an idea that I want to share and it can be immediately published and reach thousands of people. We can be the wind under someone else’s wings and share his/her light, in a certain sense, we all live in mini galaxies on social media. We are all stars not just dust, some are smaller, and some are bigger. Are you feeling like the only shining star in your gigantic galaxy, all you see is darkness? How creepy that might be? Have you wondered if it’s because you haven’t been supportive enough for others to shine? I know the best reward I ever got on social media was once I probably saved the life of a young man in Taiwan when he was suicidal just by listening to him and saying some kind words. Since then, even when smarter people tell me that I’m wasting a lot of time on social media etc., I still stick around…It doesn’t take you much to be supportive on social media to someone, it’s just like keeping a door open for the next person is much easier for everyone than shutting the door right behind. Isn’t that beautiful if we are the wind under one another’s wings?