Archive | Awareness RSS feed for this section

What’s the worst that can happen?

31 Mar

One day while driving through town with my son, the man in the car in front of me threw some trash out the window. Incensed, I laid on the horn and shook my finger at him through the windshield. My son went nuts. “What are you doing? That guy could have a gun and just pull over and shoot you for that! Is it worth that for a little litter?” I told him he was over reacting. The odds of that guy actually being so angry that he’d shoot me over my horn blast was absurd. But was it? I began to think about the situation in a different way. Every day we read incredibly horrible stories about people doing things out of anger just like my son was warning me about. Hmmm. That experience made me ponder my situation a bit more carefully.

What if, before we make a decision we thought about the worst possible outcome. What is the worst thing that could happen? Even if it’s unlikely that the worst possible scenario would actually happen, what if we thought about what that would be before we made our decisions. What if? I mean even if the odds are strongly against it, sometimes the worst case scenario actually does happen. And that deserves our thought before we make a decision.

We were working on a an intense project at work and I was exhausted. I really needed a day off. I wanted to ask my boss for it but I stopped and thought about all the possible outcomes. He could say, “Sure go ahead. Take the day,” and that would have been great. But what would the ramifications have been overall. Everyone was stressed and working hard, everyone probably wanted a day off. My position was pretty high and I probably had more freedom to ask than those further down the ladder. If I took the day off and someone else couldn’t, or worse, didn’t even feel like they could ask for a day off, how would that impact the team? How would I be viewed? Worse case scenario – Everyone would hate me and I would be a pariah from then forward. I didn’t think THAT would happen, but there were other things to consider. After I pondered this for a while, I determined that it would be better not to even ask for the day off. Just grind through the project with everyone else and when it was done, we could all take some time. So that’s what I did.

I will never know if I had taken the day off if anything negative would have happened or if anyone would have even cared. But taking the time to consider the worst case scenario gave me a broader picture of how my decision could affect not only the others involved, but the project as a whole. It was worth the time I spent thinking about it before I decided what to do.

It probably won’t matter what we have for breakfast, what shoes we wear to work, or where we park our cars. But some decisions we make today will matter. Some decisions could have far reaching consequences. We never really know how far those consequences could go. Like tossing a pebble in a pond the ripples could go wide. So before we decide anything that touches others or impacts situations, we should take the time to think. “What’s the worst that could happen?” If we can work around that, if we can manage that, then we can go forward with confidence. Start thinking.

Tags: ,

Jumping?

24 Mar

We make dozens of decisions every day.  Sometimes they need no thought – I have to go to the store, pickup the mail, get the car washed, be at work early – things like that.  There are decisions we make quickly because we don’t really have to think about them, we just need to get things done.  But other times we make fast decisions in situations when we really should wait for a moment before we decide what to say or what to do.  We jump.  Oftentimes we jump because our feelings are involved and that “fight or flight” thing comes into play.  When someone says or does something that hurts us, we can immediately jump to an action or statement that can quickly escalate the situation.  We get cut off on the road so we lean on the horn and shout out some sort of damning expletive that makes us feel better, but does nothing to improve the situation.  “You idiot!  Who taught you to drive!  Get off the road you ass!”  You probably will feel temporarily better for having told that horrible person who dared to cut you off how you feel about it.  But in reality, you have done nothing to change anything.  He is still there in his car, ignoring you, being who he is and really not caring what you think.  So the question then comes, is it wise to jump?

In our personal relationships with family, friends, co-workers, and everyone else in our sphere, there will inevitably be times when we will be hurt or disappointed in something someone is doing or has done.  We take it personally.  We feel unfairly treated and if we jump, we say things to hurt the offending party right back.  After all, they deserve it – they hurt us first.  But sometimes our perceptions of what happened may be incorrect.  And if they are and we jump to respond, we can damage those relationships and lose the trust others have in us.  A friend of mine has been dating a man for a while.  He says he’s madly in love with her but has been unable to move the relationship forward in any way.   She says she loves him but she isn’t sure he will ever really commit to a future with her and she isn’t sure how long she should wait.  He has a lot of excuses for why he can’t move forward and they all sound good, but a couple of years have gone by and nothing has changed.  After careful consideration she decided to clearly discuss the matter with him and frankly and openly ask him what his plans were for the future.  She had tried before to do this but he skirted the issue and changed the subject.  This time she was determined to have an honest discussion with him so she could decide how she wanted to move forward with her life.  When she brought the subject up and told him she wanted to talk about their relationship and get his perspective on the future, he immediately lost his temper.  “Why are you asking me this?  Are you seeing someone else?  I thought you loved me!  I can’t believe this!  Have you been pretending all this time!” and on and on he went.  He jumped.   He was uncomfortable and instead of getting the facts and listening, instead of just taking a breath before he blurted out all of his concerns, he jumped.  Maybe he jumped to divert the conversation away from something he was clearly uncomfortable talking about.  Maybe he jumped because he knew he had made her wait too long and this conversation was inevitable.  Maybe he jumped because he was threatened.  Nobody knows why he jumped, but when he did, any hope of moving the conversation forward, to discussing the options before them as a couple, or understanding his point of view were lost.

Perhaps it would be wise when we feel that sting of hurt from something someone did, when we feel the threat of something coming, when we feel scared, when we get angry, perhaps it would be wise to just wait a moment.  Take a breath.  Don’t jump – yet.  Breathe.  Look at the situation again.  Breathe.  Get all the facts, listen, listen, listen, and then take another breath.  And then express yourself calmly.  If we can stop jumping and learn to control our responses, most of our conflict will become more manageable. Our interactions will become a little easier and we will feel better.  We can choose to jump and react or we can choose to think and respond.  If we practice taking that extra breath, just taking one moment to think before we jump, we will be more successful in understanding where we are and what is happening.  They say that knowledge is power.  I believe that’s true.  So stop, take a breath, get all the knowledge you can about the situation and then use your power to control your response.  Those around you will learn that they can trust you not to jump.  It will take some practice but it will be worth it.

Tags: , ,

Newer Entries →