Archive | Direction RSS feed for this section

Reverse Engines

14 Jun

There comes a time in all of our lives when we realize we’ve really screwed up. We’ve made a big mistake. A huge blunder. We missed the mark, and we’ve made a mess. When we discover this, our first thought may be to wish for a time machine, and go back before everything happened. But, sadly, that isn’t possible. We’re here, and there is no way to go back. We have to face the music. It happens. And if it happens in such a way that we’ve affected others, it can be really uncomfortable. It’s hard to face a bad situation we’ve created, and even harder to know how to go about fixing one. It’s not really the end of the world – but for a while, it can feel like it is.

When this happens, we have choices. Instead of facing it, we could ignore the situation. Pretend like it didn’t happen. Look the other way, and wait to see if it’ll just fade as time passes. This is the worst decision we could make. Ignoring a situation never makes it go away. If we don’t do that, we could blame someone else, or make excuses, or make up a story that takes the blame away from us. Of course, that won’t work because dodging what we’ve done won’t change anything. Blaming others, or making excuses will just make things worse.

The only way to get through a situation like this is to be completely honest. We made a mistake. We can give our reasons for why we did what we did, but the fact is, we made a mistake. If criticisms and judgments come from others, we need to hear them. If relationships are damaged, we need to do what we can to repair them. If we’ve lost material goods, we need to try to restore them. We must, at every point, choose to be honest, accept our responsibility for what’s happened, and do whatever we can to turn things around. It’s never easy to clean up after a big mistake. It can be embarrassing, humiliating, and painful. But if we’re the one who made the mess, we own it, and we’re responsible for fixing it.

Today if you’re under the gun for a mistake you’ve made, decide to be as honest as possible. Face what has happened, and be open to whatever it takes to fix the situation. You may be uncomfortable, but you can handle that. If you are honest and forthcoming about your involvement, and willing to do what is needed to correct things, others will respond more positively. This won’t last forever. You will learn new things as you go through this difficult passage, and at the end of it, if you’ve chosen well, you’ll be happy with how you handled it. Everyone takes a left turn from time to time. It’s okay. Now you know where that road goes. You won’t make the same mistake again.

Tags: , ,

Interesting and Important

6 Jun

A very wise man once told me, “In our lives, some things are interesting, and other things are important.” A simple statement, but over the course of time I have pondered it again, and again. There are certainly a lot of interesting things in life. Our world is diverse, and there are new things to learn every single day. We have the continual opportunity to embrace new ideas, learn about different places, experience fun and interesting events, and do something new. There is more to see, and do than we could ever complete in one lifetime.

And there are things in our lives that are important. The most important things tend to be intangible. We may want to work on being more patient, show more compassion, be stronger in our convictions, help others more, be kinder – whatever they are, they are very important goals that deserve our attention. Because they are intangible, the reminders to do them can be illusive. There is no alarm clock going off to remind us to be kind today. It must come from within us.

Of course, there are important tangible things as well – the mundane chores that must be done so we can get along effectively, the attention to our families, our relationships, and our jobs, the maintenance issues we all deal with, and a thousand other things. All of these tangible things are important, and must be tended to.

It seems logical then, that our important tasks should take priority over other interesting endeavors. But, sometimes the interesting things take precedence. We get pulled away, we get distracted, and what is most important to us gets pushed back. After a while we realize we haven’t accomplished what we’d hoped. We got our necessary tasks done, but we were so busy with all the interesting things around us, we didn’t work on our personal goals at all. We were just too busy. It happens, and if we don’t plan carefully, it will happen regularly.

If we get carried away with the interesting things in our lives, and forget the important things we really want to accomplish, we may get lost. Living comfortably is often about order. If we can address what is most important to us first, and then move on to what is interesting afterward, we’ll probably be more comfortable. We’ll be more confident knowing that we accomplished what we wanted to do most. When we take care of the things that are most important to us, we have more peace in our lives.

Today, if you have something important that you really want to do, make it a priority. There will probably be interruptions, and something truly interesting and fun may come up. But finish the important task first, work on your personal goals, and make time for what means most to you. Plan your days this way, and you’ll have more control over your direction, and more fun in your pleasures. It’s all about order. Plan to succeed. Do your first things first. Then relax, confident that no matter what else comes today, you’ve accomplished what was most important.

Tags: , ,

In the Moment

13 Apr

I know a man that has been a distant friend for many years. I know his family and hear from him from time to time. He’s well educated and capable of doing many things, but he has one problem that has kept him from achieving much in his life, either personally or professionally. He can’t seem to live in the present. He constantly says things like, “After this happens, I’ll do that. After I get done with this, then I’ll look at that. Pretty soon the time will be right, but just not now.” He’s been talking about the same goals he wants to achieve for decades but hasn’t moved any closer to them in all that time. He keeps waiting for the perfect time, which never arrives.

He talks about the past a lot, what he did as a kid, what he did in high school and college. He has a vast photo collection encompassing years of his life, and his favorite past time is to pull them out and nostalgically talk about the good old days. His entire adult life has been one of reflecting on where he’s been, and waiting for things to start. He’s either living in the past or waiting for the future. He just can’t seem to move forward. He can’t get out of the gate.

There is nothing wrong with remembering times from our pasts. There is nothing wrong with waiting until the right time to begin doing the things we want to do. But if we get hung up on waiting for the PERFECT time to come along, we may find ourselves in this same situation. There are few times in our lives when everything comes together perfectly. They just don’t happen that often. If we wait for that to happen before we actually begin to live our lives, we may find that our lives have gone by, and we have done nothing. And that would be terrible. There is an old saying that when we’re dying we won’t regret what we’ve done, we’ll regret what we haven’t done. I believe there’s truth in that.

The best time to do what we want to do is now. The best time to start achieving our goals is now. There will never be a better time to begin to plan. Maybe circumstances aren’t ideal, and you’ll have a delay, but if we don’t make a plan to resume going forward we could get stuck. We are the only ones in control of our lives but we actually have to decide to take that control and use it. Lots of things will pull on us – our families, our responsibilities, our jobs, our commitments. But if we want to own our lives, we must find a way to manage those things and not allow them to manage us.

It’s a new day every day. If we take some time – today – to begin to plan what we’ve put off, it will be the first step. And every journey begins with the first step. If you’ve been waiting, postponing, or procrastinating, now is the time to stop. Start moving. Do one thing to end the inertia. And then tomorrow, do the next thing. One thing will lead to another, and soon the goal will be in sight. Start today. The future is there waiting for you

Tags: , ,

Newer Entries →