Lift Others to Lighten Your Own Burden

Are you feeling weary and heavy-laden?

I have a prescription for you – look for someone in need, and lift them up. Seems counter-intuitive?

Sir William Gladstone (1809-1898) – England’s second longest serving Prime Minister and one of its finest – sat down in his study at 2.00am one night to craft a speech he needed to deliver the following day in the House of Commons in response to a pressing political crisis.

That same hour, the mother of a dying child – seeing the light in Gladstone’s study – asked if he would visit her home and deliver a message of hope to her child.

Without hesitation, Gladstone left his half-finished speech on his desk and spent the remainder of the night with the child, until he died.

Later that day, Gladstone made the greatest speech of his career. Were the two events related? Gladstone believed they were.

To lift another person’s burdens is to temporarily drop your own. And since no two people’s burdens are the same shape or weight – in this way, you purchase your own reprieve, your shoulders’ rest.

Rest, and the knowledge that you have lifted another’s burdens, are often all you need to refresh your soul and renew your sense of purpose.