Tim's Story

Reading Tim Lefens' story, I actually found myself gaping at how much a persons life can change from just one moment. Tim was a completely self-absorbed person, doing everything for himself, just the way HE wanted to do it. He was a painter in New York, getting pretty well known, and as he puts it he was "King of the World" living in total freedom and total celebration. But one day he was asked by a friend to show his paintings to some students in a school. Well this school turned out to be more of a hospital for the severely disabled. And something profound happened to Tim that day. As he was setting up for his presentation, he noticed something as he met the gaze of some of the patients there. These were real people with real life and energy! They had characters and personalities, but the ones who took care of them weren't able to see past their disabilities and realize that these people were trapped and all the wanted was some kind of escape. So Tim began to consume his time thinking of a way to help them express themselves. At first it just meant rolling their wheelchairs through paint an onto a canvas, but soon after Tim came up with a brilliant idea. The patients would be equipped with a headband that had a laser on it that they could point to where they wanted the paint to go, and an assistant would interpret and paint for them. The paintings began to be shown in galleries in NY and sold for thousands of dollars. So not only is this an incredible story of how the patients were helped and how they were finally given a chance to be expressive, but more importantly it's about how the We mentality can take hold of a persons life and change them for the better. Its about how satisfying it is to be able to help other people in need without expecting anything in return. Tim realized that and he decided to take action and use his resources to help better the lives of complete strangers. So much can be learned from that, especially from a leadership class like ours that is just looking for ways to help out. Tim's example can also show us to be sensitive to other people's circumstance and to care for and respect them, no matter what.