Getting paid with love

If you didn't catch the Super Bowl on Sunday then I'm assuming by now you've seen the new McDonald's commercial. In case you haven't watched live tv in the past few days, here it is. I can wait.

Besides being a genius marketing idea and a fantastic commercial, I love the message behind it. Sometimes we pay in love. Lately, I've been getting paid in love.

I taught a plotting class at the library last week. First, let me tell you that this class was a complete fiasco. The powerpoint clicker stopped working so I had to use the wifi to project my presentation. However, something was very wrong with the screen resolution. In the end, the attendees only got to see the bottom right hand corner of every slide. I was frazzled with the technical difficulties so I was not even close to my A game. Also, because it took so long to get the tech business worked out, I didn't have time to eat my dinner and I was starving for the whole two hours. Fiasco.

When I got home my husband asked if I sold any books. Yeah right! After all that, the last thing I was about to do was let the attendees know they could buy my book. When I was done, I packed up and headed home feeling pretty down on myself and convinced this would be my last workshop.

Then I got an email from one of the ladies who attended letting me know how much she enjoyed the class and that one of my talking points helped her work out a plotting issue she was having.

Well, hey there!

Turns out the class wasn't the complete disaster I was convinced it was. That was exactly the little pep talk I needed. So this past weekend, when a writer's group in another city invited me to come speak, I jumped at the chance. I had my confidence back because someone else chose to pay me in love. And the bonus, this next speaking gig comes with an organized book signing. So hopefully, I'll get paid in more spendable ways as well.

The moral of the story here is two-fold. One, we should always remember to send out a little love to someone else. Even if we think that person is doing great, it never hurts to tell someone you appreciate what they've done. And two, sometimes we do events or put in effort when the pay is nothing more than a little love from others. Sure, we all wish we could make big bucks with everything we do, but that's not always the most important part. Plus, you never know when karma is going to repay you.

Someone asked me recently if I had any plans to quit blogging. I'm guessing they took a look at my schedule and figured I'd have to let it go. My answer: no way. This little slice of the internet is my own personal labor of love. And as much as so many of you have told me you get so much out of this site, I promise, I get more in return. Knowing that I can take the randomness shoved inside this nutty skull and use it to help others is a huge love payment that I'll take any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

So next time someone asks for help or looks for a little author flavor, don't focus so much on what you'll get in return. Cold hard cash is always nice, but no amount of money in the world can buy goodwill and warm fuzzies. Sometimes, it's okay to get paid with love.