This past week has been pivotal for me. I have now had the privilege of teaching on every continent. I have not, like a handful of people I know, been to every country on Earth – but there’s still time.

In the process I read listen as much as I can and I gather people-stories.

While there are people in the depths and on the fringes of severe mental health issues in all communities and in all cultures and to whom this may not apply, I have discovered both up-close and casually, that people are much the same in despite differences in culture, language, race, and expressions of faith or the apparent lack of it:

• People are helpful and pleasant when you yourself are friendly and open.
• People want to belong, they want respect, they want worthwhile endeavors into which they can plow their idea, talents, and strength.
• People will do about anything for their children, especially their education.
• Bitterness and family resentments can lodge themselves in families, rich and poor, and can pervert thinking and perceptions for generations for those families.
• It takes just one family member who is in the midst of most entangled of toxic family circumstances to begin dramatic positive shifts when he or she embraces the courage to live a life of forgiveness, reconciliation, and grace.

People often find other people’s true stories inspiring.

Please tell me your story if any of the following topics apply to you. Try to keep it to 200 or fewer words and include permission for me to run it in You and Me.

I will not print your name unless you specifically indicate you want your name included.

• You left your spouse for another man or woman and it did, or did not, turn out well.
• You have seen a radical change in a family member for good or for ill.
• You were abandoned in a marriage but came back from the trauma to live really fully and well, or, if you never did really recover.
• You are an adult who was adopted as a child and finding your birth parent(s) was, or was not, a rich and rewarding experience.
• You left South Africa to live in another country but returned.
• You have witnessed amazing acts of grace and forgiveness and generosity.
• You have worked for the most difficult boss in the world and survived.
• You have witnessed or experienced a miraculous act of friendship.
• You found love in a most unexpected place or from a most unexpected source.

I have the joy and privilege of traveling this week – alone. My sons’ schools “spring breaks” do not line up with mine, and so they’re home and I have just ended a long trek to Curitiba, Brazil via Toronto and Sao Paulo.

Indianapolis was hit this weekend with a giant snowstorm and we sat in the plane on the runway for three hours waiting for the plane to be de-iced before we could head for Toronto. So the journey didn’t start well.

After a long night awake on the nine-hour flight to Sao Paulo and while passengers were emptying the overhead bins and waiting to de-plane, my name was announced over the intercom. I was asked to immediately identify myself to the gate agent. Mine was the only name called.

Connecting flight change, I thought. What amazed me was that in my tired state during the short walk from row 37 to the front of the plane my anxiety triggered. My sons have been in an accident. The house has burned. Your sister’s ill. Your brother needs you. You’re back on the next flight. Calm down, I told myself.

“Your flights been rebooked, Mr. Smith,” said the Air Canada representative, “you’re going to Curitiba three hours earlier than ticketed.”

HALT – Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired: messes with our thinking.