Some years ago my son had a friend whose commitment to irritate and embarrass his parents went further than he planned. His frustration and rage drove him toward increasingly risky behaviors until he wound up incarcerated. He was young and had no prior record and the offence was one all too familiar to prosecutors so his sentence was a few months of jail time. SEVERAL months later he called from jail to speak to my son (a good friend of his who longed to help his friend stay connected with people who cared about him and I supported that after we established some ground rules about how much money I was willing to commit to the project) but said son was not home. So we talked for a few minutes and I asked as gently as I knew how, "I thought you were due to get out months ago. What is going on?" "Well," he replied sounding a little embarrassed, "I thought I could go through this without changing." "Oh," I paused, "isn't that the whole point of the exercise?" (Last I heard he was working and staying out of trouble, so I'm hopeful he is well.)
But I think of how often mankind is so much better at responding to disasters than avoiding them. "Yes, we had received reports that the dam had structural issues, but really we never expected 1,000 people to drown." Or we spending massive amounts of energy and money trying to terrify the populous with tales of unimaginable catastrophe only avoidable by paying the oracles to save us, thus saving us from having to make different and new choices.
So my challenge is this: spend time today thinking about what you don't like about your current situation and come up with one small idea about how you can do some thing different...even a small thing. Be the first one to not respond to an irritating comment or do a kindness to someone you feel treated you badly or commit to 5 minutes (or whatever you can start with) to being still and thinking about the things that are right in your life.
Now maybe you have much bigger changes that you know you need to make (living in a violent relationship or working for a dishonest boss to name two), but if you haven't begun executing a plan to change that yet, then start today with something smaller. Start by enjoying a flower or breeze or speaking kindly to the new kid trying to learn the cash register at the drive through window or thank the janitor in your building.
Here is the secret: you have much more authority over your circumstances than you know. If you don't think that is true click the "CONTACT" button and let's start a conversation.
But I think of how often mankind is so much better at responding to disasters than avoiding them. "Yes, we had received reports that the dam had structural issues, but really we never expected 1,000 people to drown." Or we spending massive amounts of energy and money trying to terrify the populous with tales of unimaginable catastrophe only avoidable by paying the oracles to save us, thus saving us from having to make different and new choices.
So my challenge is this: spend time today thinking about what you don't like about your current situation and come up with one small idea about how you can do some thing different...even a small thing. Be the first one to not respond to an irritating comment or do a kindness to someone you feel treated you badly or commit to 5 minutes (or whatever you can start with) to being still and thinking about the things that are right in your life.
Now maybe you have much bigger changes that you know you need to make (living in a violent relationship or working for a dishonest boss to name two), but if you haven't begun executing a plan to change that yet, then start today with something smaller. Start by enjoying a flower or breeze or speaking kindly to the new kid trying to learn the cash register at the drive through window or thank the janitor in your building.
Here is the secret: you have much more authority over your circumstances than you know. If you don't think that is true click the "CONTACT" button and let's start a conversation.
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