Tag Archives: Burn

Refining

19 May

Trouble. It comes to all of us. Just when things are sailing along, bang, a wrench in the plans. It’s often unexpected, usually annoying, and sometimes devastating. None of us wants to deal with trouble in our lives. Problems are something we’d rather never have, but this is life. This isn’t paradise. And so, we have problems. Things go wrong. People let us down. Situations change. Promises get broken.

It’s easy to feel frustrated when our plans have gone awry, and we can be angry when there are disappointing changes. We can have all the pity parties we want, but in the end we have to face the new circumstance, whatever that is. If we are hurt, we may spend time wondering why this happened. Why us? Why now? Those are good questions, but they don’t help us deal with where we are. We have to re-group, re-plan, recover, and go on.

When metal is being refined, it is placed in very hot ovens. The fire has to be hot enough to melt the metal, and separate all the impurities from it. As the impure contents pour off, what is left is the refined, pure ore. It takes time, and a lot of heat for this process to work. But if we want pure gold or silver, we have to burn off the other elements that are undesirable.

We are the same way. We are not perfect. We have things in our personalities that need to change. We have imperfections we need to eliminate. Problems and troubles challenge us. They give us an opportunity to experience the heat of discord, the fire of turbulence, and the clarifying process of coping. If we can think of our trials as opportunities to burn off the chaff, opportunities to refine ourselves, we will be able to handle them more easily.

Today, if things go wrong, a little or a lot, try to remember that whatever has happened can work in your favor. You can refine yourself by being put to the test. You can become purer by experiencing a little heat. Think about that before you fall into despair. This is your chance to become clearer, nobler, stronger and more courageous. Let the fire burn, let the problems come, let things get hot, and know that you can handle it. You have everything you need to handle it. You can take this. There is nothing you can’t manage. Remember that today. There is refinement in the fire.

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Burning Bridges

16 May

Bridges are great when you need to cross over to get somewhere else. We can’t drive through the river, but we can drive across the bridge over the river to get to our destination. Our relationships with others are like bridges too. We need the people in our lives to make the connections that take us where we want to go, help us get to our goals, and bring us happiness. Sometimes those connections are personal, sometimes they are professional, and sometimes they are emotional. Without our personal bridges, we stand alone.

I had a friend several years ago who had a great job. He liked what he was doing but got involved in a romantic relationship with one of the founders of the company. Things didn’t work out, and their relationship ended badly. After that, he said nothing he did was ever good enough, and then one day during a big meeting, he lost his temper, said some horrible things to her and the others in the room, and walked out, never to return. Afterward he regretted what had happened, and I asked him if there was any way to repair the situation. He said, “Nope. I’ve burned that bridge.”

As we navigate our lives, there will surely be times when others will hurt us, and damage our relationships with them. They do things we can’t accept, or they say things we can’t forget. Sometimes we decide the damage is too great, and we decide to end all contact with them. We are too hurt to allow them to stay in our lives. So, we burn that bridge. We cast it up in flames, say goodbye, and decide we’ll never come back.

But life is funny. As we go forward, we may find ourselves looping back around to where we were despite our best efforts. Our jobs change, and suddenly that person you severed all ties with becomes your co-worker, or worse yet, your boss. Or you move to a new location, you start over, and then you see that person who hurt you so badly is your new neighbor. What will you do now?

Burning bridges is a dangerous game. We never know where our lives will take us. We cannot read the future. We don’t know what developments lay ahead. It’s possible that the bridge you’ve burned will return to your life in a way that you’ll need to re-establish the connection. And if you’ve really turned away, it may be hard to reconnect. People come and go out of our lives all the time. It seems wiser then, instead of burning a bridge, to simply take a step back away from it.

Today if you face a situation where someone has crossed a line you cannot tolerate, where someone has gone too far, and you feel like extricating them completely from your life from here forward, you may want to burn that bridge. You may want to tell them off, tell them you are done, and tell them never, ever, ever to come near you again. Before you do that though, take a moment and think carefully. Perhaps the better choice is just to keep your distance from them for a time. Just walk away for a while. You don’t want them in your life as they are now, and you need space from them. But don’t burn the bridge – they may change, your lives will certainly change, and you never know what the future will bring. Leave the door open a little for now. Then if they return back into your life, you can decide how far you will let them in. And the bridge to allow that will still be there. Burning bridges is a dangerous game. Be careful how you play it.

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