Let It Go

Two things I get very frustrated with are, incompetence and arrogance. Unfortunately I constantly find myself surrounded by both and in some cases a combination thereof. From shop assistants to fellow drivers on the road to our government officials, we cannot avoid this frustration.

 

So, how does one deal with these frustrations in a way that won’t end up in a civil liability case? 

• Try to help and improve the situation by means of your skills, talents, knowledge and know-how.
• Provide alternative suggestions with logical and sensitive argument.
• Allow some time for logic to percolate.

 In the end there is only so much you can physically do to change this type of frustration. So do what you can and then let it go!

 

If you have done nothing to improve the situation, you haven’t earned the right to moan. If you have done all that is within your means, then don’t let the  negativity of moaning bring you (and others listening to you) down, let it go. Groaning will not help the situation nor will it help you.

 

I am reminded of the baboon that finds seeds within an ant mound, except the hole to bring out a fist clenching the seeds is too small. A flat hand was easy to put in but the broader fist was just too big to get out. The amazing thing was that even when faced with danger, the baboon couldn’t release the seeds to make his escape. He was trapped by his illogical need to hold onto the seeds even though he wouldn’t be able to get them out. In the same way we hold onto life’s frustrations which keeps us right where we are. Just like the baboon, we are unable to move on. If he just opened his fist and released those unattainable seeds, he could run off to safer and better places.

 

I encourage all of us to open our fists that are holding on so tightly to bitterness, hurt, frustrations, disappointments, anger. Drop those things that have us anchored in one place to be able to move on.

Knights in Shining Armour

I guess having children gives adults an excuse to watch all those great animation movies. It makes a pleasant change from the violence, crudeness and gratuitous sex that is in most movies these days.

What I see in the animations is that there a crisis has occurred, someone emerges as the hero, defeats the ‘badies’, saves the day and returns order once again. It is quite a generalisation but that is the general trend.  

The older animations usually had a Prince Charming-type who saved the day This handsome character on his powerful white horse would ride into town, have the princess instantly fall in love with him and then he would ride off and ‘slay the dragon’. This is obviously what people needed to see, that there is a hero out there who will ride into town and save the day. How convenient would that be? Issues would be so easy to resolve. Just wait for Prince so-and-so and he will rescue us.

To continue my reality-check theme of there being no magical genies, guess what? The reality is, there is rarely going to be a knight in shining armour that will incredibly appear, just when you need him the most.

Sorry, but most of the time you are going to have to face the dragons on your own. I don’t mean you have to have the battle as a lone soldier, I just mean you have to initiate and lead the mission. You can recruit as many allies and resources as you have access to. Surround yourself with friends who can support and lift you up, but ultimately you are going to have to do something yourself to get out of the crisis you find yourself in.

The more recent animations I have watched all have a seemingly weak, under-dog  character who steps up and takes on the ‘badies’. So, I presume the subliminal message is that even me as a seemingly weak, under-dog can actually slay a dragon. Maybe subliminal isn’t really the right word choice but for the children watching, I believe it is. The adults that watch recognise the under-lying message but often just relay it onto children in their development and character building.

Why only for children though? Surely we can also identify with the same under-dog hero, not really believing we have what it takes to get through the current crises. Ask yourself, “Will the dragon I face now, actually destroy me?”. Think back to the previous one you faced. You survived! Maybe a few scars but you survived. Now tackle the next one with the knowledge that you can and have defeated dragons before. Maybe you do have what it takes…    

Where's The Genie?

If you could do absolutely anything you wanted where money, time, resources, skills, responsibilities were of no concern. Almost like a genie in a lamp scenario. You have one thing you can do, you just ask and it will be granted. What would that one thing be?

Without thinking, my knee-jerk response would be to ask to be a world famous guitarist that could rock stages around the globe. That would be an amazing experience!

Did you think of something similar? Something that was a personal dream or desire, or was it something more practical like going on an ocean cruise in your personal yacht with all the services you may need on board. Stopping off at secluded tropical islands where you can laze in the warm waters without any cares. Maybe you weren’t so extravagant and merely asked to have a new house with a new car in the garage and nothing owing to the bank on either. That would be a huge financial relief in anyone’s world. Maybe you just wanted a week away from your work to recuperate after a long period of stress. Go to a place of tranquillity, where you can rest and recharge yourself. That is a pretty modest ask and yet very rewarding.

How many of you immediately thought of asking for something to help somebody else?

I know I didn’t so I am guessing there are a couple of others with the same in-built selfish human characteristics that I have.

Now think about how many people could have benefited from your wish if it went something like these:

·         “I want to find a cure for cancer.”

·         “I want to bring about an end of religious wars.”

·         “I want to be able to feed the starving and house the homeless.”

·         “I want to end the need for people to abuse children.”

·         …and the list can go on and on.

These are pretty big asks you may say, but no bigger than my ask of being a guitar legend!!! My point is that our selfish desires kick-in long before we think of how we could possibly help someone else.

There never will be a genie conjured out of a magic lamp. We never will be asked what our single wish is to be.

I say, “So what. Who needs a genie?” Go and make a difference in somebody else’s world and be a ‘genie’ for them. Find the starving and give them a meal. It may not end the world hunger crisis but it will help that individual. Find somebody who is hurting and listen to their problems, let them cry on your shoulder and dry their tears. You may not be able to solve their problem but you can show them love and let them know that there is someone who cares for them. Be part of a group that is doing positive work in your community. It may be a task that is more easily accomplished as a team rather than as an individual. It may open doorways to greater experiences and opportunities to help even more people.

“How can I help someone, when I can’t even help myself?” - You may feel so unworthy and depressed that you don’t think you could possibly help anyone else. Well the most uplifting experience is to go and  do something for somebody else. Seeing gratitude in someone’s eyes is priceless and knowing you made a difference, can only lift your spirit. Taking the focus off of your problems and addressing someone else’s is therapeutic. It may even give you insight into what you have and how much you already have.

So don’t waste your time looking for the magic lamp with the genie. Be the ‘genie’. Start big or start small, but at least make a start.

You CAN Get There From Here

I can’t remember what program I saw it in, but there was a scene where a tourist was lost somewhere in the Scottish Highlands. He eventually came across an old bearded sheep farmer and stopped and asked how to get to his desired destination. He must have been way off course as the response he got was, “Aye laddie, ye can’t get ther’ from he’r!” So, on the traveller went none the wiser.

 

That phrase has stuck in my mind ever since, as if you can’t get to your destination from where you are currently positioned, then how will you ever get there?

 

It may be a long haul or a difficult journey requiring different modes of travel and perhaps a heap of resources, but nowadays you can pretty much get anywhere from anywhere! Set your destination and get going.

 

So how do you know if you are on the right path?

 

Apparently, stopping and asking for directions, as with our tourist above, doesn’t always give us the confirmation or redirection we may desire, so we need a more definitive measure of our progress. The modern day traveller would likely have a GPS device, guiding them turn by turn. An up-to-date road map is an old but reliable method. Travelling with someone knowledgeable of the area is always a good method.

 

But even with all the above, it is still possible to get yourself off-course and lost. Life throws you detours and diversions that aren’t part of the planned journey or you may even decide to change your destination as you are travelling. To correct your course, you have to know where you are. Use everything you have available to do this. Assess your surroundings, compare it to your map. Review the turns you have made to see where you possibly went off course. Ask someone, preferably someone you can trust, which direction you are heading. Once you know where you are, you can compare that to your desired destination and plan the route to get back on course.

 

It is always a good idea to frequently check your position against your planned route so that you know immediately when you are heading off-course. It is far easier to make corrections for minor deviations rather than travelling blindly thinking you are heading in the right direction only to discover you have missed a turn some miles back down the road. If you have, remember, you can still get to where you want to go from here! It may require some back-tracking and take you a bit longer but you can still get there.

 

Checking your route enables you to prepare for what lies ahead. You may be approaching a section of rough dirt road, so you know before hand to slow down and are not taken by surprise. You take the necessary steps before you get into the next phase of the trip so things can run as smoothly as possible. Imagine heading out on a long stretch of road not realising there are no fuel stations. If you had checked the route, you would have known to fill up your tank at the last station before that turn-off. From a personal experience it is not fun travelling along an unknown desolate route with your fuel light flashing and not knowing where the next possible refuelling point is going to be. Be prepared.

 

Monitoring your route is also quite motivating as you can see the distance from where you were steadily increasing and the gap to where you desire to be, decreasing.

On long journeys, this can be quite hard at the outset as the gap can seem insurmountable and the incremental steps in distance traversed seem miniscule. For these journeys, set milestones along the way and focus on achieving those but never losing site of the destination. Celebrate and enjoy the successes of achieving the intermediate milestones. Reward yourself for making it there. Have a rest, refresh, refuel, review your route and resume the journey.

All of the above sound so obvious for road trips but we don’t always follow the same advice for our life trips which are of so much more importance.

Do you know where you are?

Do you know where you are going?

Do you have a course you are following?

Have you got the resources and means (or at least a plan on how to get them) to get you there?

Have you got intermediate milestones for the longer journeys?

Have you started yet…?

 

 

Decide To Start

 “A decision is but a beginning” - Soren Kierkegaard

My last couple of posts were about halting negative thought processes. A simple decision to take those thoughts captive has the potential to make a huge impact on your life. A new beginning. Other decisions will have greater or less of an influence on your life direction, but an influence nonetheless. I remember those adventure books where at the end of a chapter you had a choice to make such as “Turn left down the dark alley or continue straight along the well lit path?” Depending on your choice you were directed to a different chapter with a different outcome. The great thing was that you could go back and change your decision if the outcome wasn’t what you hoped for. You could also read both options to check and see how both decisions would turn out.

 

Unfortunately with life, we are limited to only seeing the outcome of one decision and only after you have committed to it. You cannot go back to the previous chapter, pretend nothing happened and do it over again. Once the decision is made, work at every obstacle or frustration and turn the outcome into the best it could possibly be. Sometimes, it is going to be the wrong decision with an unfavourable outcome. Make the best of what you have learnt from it and make another decision to move forward again.  

 

Even seemingly arbitrary decisions can have a profound impact. My personal experience of that was a simple choice one morning, three years ago, whether to do my training ride or not, considering I was running late. Needless to say, I chose the discipline route of sticking to the program and not heeding that small voice telling me to take the car to work. The result of that decision put me in ICU for almost two weeks and a long period of recovery. To date, I still have no recollection of what happened.

 

Would my life be different if I had decided to use the car that morning? I would say absolutely, without a doubt, “Yes”. Can I change that now? Of course not, so I must make the most of current position and take everything I learnt from that experience and use it to improve myself and hopefully improve the world around me.

 

Another decision of greater magnitude which I made during that time in ICU was whether to keep fighting to live or just give up. I prayed to God and asked Him to take me out of that situation of pain, discomfort and immense frustration. That day, my wife had placed a newspaper article of the accident, at the foot of my hospital bed and the photo used in the article was me with my two sons. At the point of me giving up, my boys in the photograph ‘spoke’ to me. Some may say it was the drugs, but I believe it was much more than just an induced hallucination. “Daddy, you can’t go now. We need you.” Those words echoed in my swollen brain and right then, I decided I was getting my life back and started a miraculous recovery. Definitely a decision for a new beginning.

 

Conversations during follow-up visits to the surgeons and doctors after being discharged, emphasised how close I was to dying as they had given me slim odds of pulling through. Some even called me their “Miracle patient”.

 

Maybe it was the power of human spirit and determination that got me through? I believe that God was right there with me and His hand was doing the healing in my body.

 

My lesson learnt from that whole experience, is that I am loved immensely. More than I ever realised. My family and friends were amazing during the hospital stay and during my recovery.

 

I have also realised that I am here on this earth, in this particular place, at this precise time, for a reason. Not by chance, fate or random sequence of events. I have a purpose and I will live every day trying to fulfil that purpose. The full scope of my mission is not clear, but as long as I am working towards what I do know, the rest will be revealed in due course.

 

Why have I shared all of this with you?

Firstly the impact of making decisions. Consider all your decisions carefully as you never realise what impact they could have.

Secondly, I believe we all have a significant purpose to fulfil. I’d rather you realise that without having to go through some traumatic incident. If you haven’t done so already, decide to believe in yourself as unique and specifically created with a purpose in mind. Believing that without a doubt, would truly be a new beginning for you. Take up the challenge to discover your mission and embark on a journey of doing remarkable things.