There’s a bucket inside of you. Don’t worry. It’s invisible. My 5-year-old son told me, so you know it’s true.
When you say or do something kind or uplifting, you fill someone’s bucket. When you bring them down you dump their bucket. It’s all laid out in a children’s book. What a simple way to convey a complex idea, how you treat others.
Would it change the way you treat others if you thought you might be dumping their bucket? Would you make different decisions if you knew you had the chance to fill someone’s bucket?
Would it surprise you to find out that when you fill their bucket you end up filling your own?
No real new ideas here. Just reframing a conversation we’ve all had too many times. Analogies are helpful tools to give abstract concepts handles. It may sound juvenile, but I think we might love and be loved more if we asked ourselves the bucket question more often.
“Am I filling their bucket?”
Confession time:
I can often joke around. I attribute it to my own insecurities. It’s a way to relate to people, make them laugh and hopefully, by extension, make them like me a bit more. Often it can be at someone else’s expense. Perhaps it’s been at your expense.
Perhaps I’ve dumped your bucket.
If I have, and I’ve never sought forgiveness, I’m sorry.
My bucket was feeling pretty low a couple weeks ago. The multitude of life’s pressures had me slouching. That was until I got a note from a friend who follows this blog. She shared how our recent post about expectations resonated with her current circumstances.
Just like that, my bucket was so full I could barely carry it without spilling some. (Thank you, Jen!)
You have a bucket. It’s my hope that it’s forever full. But sometimes it won’t feel that way. I hope in those moments someone listens to their gut prodding them to make that call, send that note, pray that prayer.
And, I hope you do the same.
Let’s start our own bucket brigade.
If you have a bucket story, filling or dumping, we’d love to hear and share it.
