I had not thought about it until I heard it on television this morning, this is the first Monday of our new decade.  I actually like the sound of the words, new decade.  When you think about it, we mortals do not get a plethora of, new decades?  I have, at the beginning of this year, lived in 8 decades.  A nice accomplishment for a 62 year old!

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I was back to walking our campus today.  It was very quiet due to it being winter break.  I walked through the Student Center and observed two students, a female and male, excitedly playing with what appeared to be a full body video game.  They were bobbing and weaving and dancing about, impervious to the world about them, and they were getting wonderful exercise.

I listened as Jonathon and I were enjoying lunch, to a young man in a wheel chair and his caretaker.  Their verbal exchange revealed that they were friends and enjoyed each others company.  There was no lesser than and greater than…there was no healthy/disabled dynamic between them.  They spoke as what they were, equals.

I reflected on the excitement and joy that can be experienced at Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale…if you want to access it.  I remembered when everything about SIUC was a mystery to me and was intriguing and different from what I had experienced.  I noticed that the staff at Building Services, of which I was a new member, wore, at least, three different uniforms.  I was introduced  to my, Custodian, and I ruminated on what my job duties would be…as I thought that I had been hired as a custodian?  An African American gentleman entered the building that I was cleaning and announced that he was may boss and was I Brooks or Brandon!  He was smoking an aromatic cigar and the smoke encircled his head like a wreath.  Later that evening…my Custodian came over and asked me how I was doing and I told him that I had completed the cleaning assignment that he had given me and he responded by asking me if I had been upstairs yet?  I said that I had not and he laughed and told me that the upstairs was my job also…

There is a newness to life each day that we live.  Whether it be our first day on the job or our first home…or the realization that there is a job for us to do and a purpose for our existence.

So often we sell ourselves short.  We believe the story of our lives that others have attempted to write for us.  Perhaps we do possess the education or the verbal skills or the writing skills to succeed…so we have been told.  We see others who for all empirical purposes seem to be rather ordinary and it is not apparent that they have angels wings or super powers?

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The reality is that all accomplishments and successes and battles won and victories…are secured by humans…that are just like us.  There is no reason that you cannot be a success in your career and your life!

It is the first Monday of the new decade.  Each day is the first day of the rest of our lives.  Stop…and pay attention to your environment…take a long time to look at your surroundings…and you will see things that you have never seen before.  The life that each of us has been given…is full of newness and infinite possibilities that awake anew with each morning.

Do not allow someone else to write your story.  Take the authorship of it seriously.  How you present yourself is part of your narrative.  Present yourself with confidence and humility and a servant/leaders heart!