Mongooseosophy

I have a self-made rule in golf that says “You cannot hit a golf ball to not do something.” Seems obvious, but I can’t tell you how many times I have done, or heard others do this. Standing over a shot with some sort of trouble – water, a bunker, a long carry – and we say “Ok, ball don’t go there.” I’ve never compiled stats, but I’d be willing to bet over half time and probably a lot more than that, that’s exactly where the ball goes.

On my home course, we have a short par three over water which is a very common place to hear comments like this. The focus of the thought, therefore the statement, is the water, not the green, which is really where we want the ball to land. As soon as I hear “water”, I’m expecting the next sound to be “splash.”

An interesting observation, however, is that in the winter, that particular green being the lowest point of the golf course and next to water, freezes. We have contests trying to hit the ball and bounce it off the frozen green onto the tee box for the next hole, which sits behind the green because we know the green can’t hold the ball. Almost never do any of us miss the green. Why? I contend that it’s because that’s what we’re thinking and talking about. The water is irrelevant, it’s usually frozen also, so there’s no perceived trouble. Seriously, it’s just as wet as ever and it’s right there in front of us, just in frozen form. But our minds tell us the threat is less, we accept that and our results nearly all of the time prove us correct.

So, what’s really happening? If I’m analyzing it correctly, in many situations where we have the ability to exercise a degree of control in it, we can dictate the outcome by what we allow in our thought lives. The things we set ourselves up to expect, when we can direct our actions toward them, very often come to pass. If we cannot dictate the outcome, we can seriously influence it. I’m talking about situations where it’s just us. We cannot control people, weather and lots of other factors, but we can control our thoughts, and when the result comes down to our perceptions, beliefs and expectations the large majority of time, what we think is what we do.

The Bible backs this up – Proverbs 15:7 says out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. In Luke 6:45, Jesus says that a good man, out of the goodness of his heart brings forth what is good. The same for the evil. I’m not here to debate good or evil, I am here to say that if we have the ability to exercise such control, then the results of the things we care about most would be greatly aided by our purposed doing of them.

We’ve all read stories of people who perform at high levels who talk about the vision they have for the thing they are doing or creating. They imagine it, they dream it, they plan for it, they get consumed by it and from intangibles on the inside, they produce something tangible on the outside, be it sport, art, design, music and the like. Creative internal thinking produces created external beauty and achievement. You won’t hear them talking about what they don’t want to accomplish, or hope doesn’t happen.

A grave mistake I think we make as a society is to see or perceive these as “special ones”. Those who have a gift from the cosmos, or some external source of inspiration that allows them to function as they do. We don’t see ourselves in the same category, having the same abilities or opportunities. We see the end result and marvel only at the product. We completely ignore the process. We understand this in the world of computing – garbage in, garbage out – yet we exempt ourselves from the same truth and wrongly assume others have something we do not.

Tiger Woods didn’t become Tiger Woods because the cosmos favored him. Sure, he had natural talent, but he still had to do something with it. He had to grind his craft on a daily basis. I once read an article where he talked about his daily routine when he was at his prime on tour. With the exception of a break for lunch, it was eight to ten hours of gym, hit balls, putt, chip, hit more balls and play 18 holes. It might have even been 36. Every. Single. Day. His belief fueled his daily regimen.

I read another article that when he won a major tournament, his wife wanted to throw a party to celebrate, which he declined. “We expect to win,” was his reason. Any shocker he is tied for 1^st in career wins on Tour and sits 2^nd in major wins? He expects to win, and so he does. Age, injury and physical limitations are realities he has to face now and those are things outside of his control. But what he could control, he did and it came from the inside and showed itself on the outside.

Another mistake we can make is overthinking a thing. We can take in too much data, focus on too many variables, and in the soup of information get lost. Paralysis by over-analysis. We don’t really focus on anything as much as we try to focus on everything. It’s not possible. For me, a lot of the everything I am focusing are things I cannot control.

The disciplined mind learns to sift through and weed out each thought. Again, from the Bible in 2^nd Corinthians 10:5 – take every thought captive. The biblical purpose is to focus on Christ, but the truth of the exercise holds true for any endeavor that requires our minds. Take our thoughts captive, weed out the unnecessary and what is outside of our control, focus on the things we can control, formulate a vision, execute on the goal. Ironically, when we slow down, we are better able to achieve.

Athletes talk about being in the zone, performers about being present in the moment. Neuroscience refers to it as flow. Steven Kotler’s excellent book, The Art Of Impossible is a masterwork of thirty years of brain research and high performance correlation.

Oftentimes we need to let go of things to better take hold of other, more needful things. Just like the fist in the candy jar; if you grab all the candies tightly in your fist, you can’t pull it or the candies out. But letting go, grabbing one at a time, you can have all the candies you want. You are making use of what you can actually handle in the moment. Execute on one part, move on to the next and so on.

Another mistake we can make with our thinking, and this one can sneak in once we’ve done the weeding out process, is second guessing ourselves. It’s a form of overthinking. What it really is, is going back and picking up some of those discarded thoughts. It’s self-doubt.

Once we’ve settled on a direction, we need to commit to it and if, in the process, we discover we have made a mistake, accept that this too is part of the process. It’s perfectly fine to pause and regroup, to re-evaluate our process and choices. But we must come back to the sifting, weeding and commitment once again.

In time, experience can aid us and we’ll need to make those adjustments less frequently. Of course, in new efforts, they are to be expected, and should be welcomed. This is how the human brain learns and how we arrive at achievement. But whether we’re attempting something new, or doing something we’ve done many times before, clarity of thought and expressed purpose, with minimized distractions will always lead us to desired results.

Are there things that we’ve been trying to accomplish that feel like we’ve been running into a wall over and over about? Do we start down a path expecting to end in one place, only to find we end up somewhere else? Do we have great ideas and plans at the start that slowly fizzle out and die, never arriving at completion? Do we have a trail of those kinds of things in our lives? I’m honest enough with myself to say there’s been a bunch in my lifetime.

I don’t believe the answer is to give up or quit. I don’t believe the answer is that we’re unable, untalented, not educated enough or ungifted. William Arthur Ward said if you can imagine it, you can achieve it, if you can dream it, you can become it. All of us have God-given imaginations for a reason. All of us dream of more for a reason. Those are seeds that are in us waiting to be nurtured, cared for, fertilized and watered.

That entire process starts and remains in our minds until the end result shows up on the outside. True for the athlete, true for the dancer, true for the artist, writer, businessman or woman and politician. True regardless of gender, race, age and education. True because this is what we were born for, this is what we were born to do, this is who we were born to become.

Our thoughts will qualify or disqualify us based on what we allow to happen there. No one will ever know what we could have done or could have become. But we will. I’m challenging us to dream our dreams, do our work and become who we were destined to become. It can be big like writing the next bestseller and it can be small like organizing a neighborhood block party. Don’t think to avoid what could go wrong, purpose to achieve what will become. It’s in us all. Let’s get to work!

“Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.”
-Henry Morton, President of the Stevens Institute of Technology, referring to Edison’s light bulb, New York Herald, December 18,1879

“The ordinary ‘horseless carriage’ is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle.”
-Literary Digest, 1899

“The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not for the near future, in spite of many rumours to that effect.”
-Harper’s Weekly, 1902

“Flight by machines heavier than air is impractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.”
– Simon Newcomb, Physicist and Director of the US Naval Observatory, 1902

“While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially, I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.”
-Lee De Forest, Inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926

“It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology.”
-John Van Neumann, inventor, mathematician, physicist and computer scientist, 1949

“We can never learn their internal constitution, nor, in regard to some of them, how heat is absorbed by their atmosphere.”
-Auguste Comte regarding the study of stars, The Positive Philosophy, 1842

“Rocks don’t fall from the sky.”
-The French Academy of Sciences regarding meteors, 1700’s

“There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”
-Albert Einstein, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1934

“Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.”
-Thomas Alva Edison, 1889

“…obvious limitations of his device, which is hardly more than a toy.”
-Western Union board of directors declining the patent rights to Bell’s telephone, 1876

“A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.”
-The New York Times, January 13, 1920

“To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to Earth, all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.”
-Lee De Forest, February 25, 1957

“The machine gun will not bring about a revolution in tactics. It will accomplish no real change in the art of war. It is not, in the broad sense of the word, a new arm or a new power.”
-The Saturday Review, 1870

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
-Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

“Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop – because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds.”
-TIME Magazine, 1966

“You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are but a youth, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”
-King Saul to David regarding Goliath, 1 Samuel 17:33, approx. 1023BC

“The abdomen, the chest and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.”
Sir John Eric Erichsen, Surgeon Extraordinaire to Queen Victoria, 1873

“The Beatles have no future in show business, we don’t like your boys’ sound. Groups are out; four-piece groups with guitars, particularly, are finished.”
-Decca Records Executive to Brian Epstein, the Beatles manager, 1962

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”
-Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, 2007

“No online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”
-Clifford Stoll, astronomer, Newsweek, February 26, 1995

“I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”
-Robert Metcalfe, InfoWorld, 1995

“It remains to be proved how fast the brain is capable of traveling. If it cannot acquire an eight-mile per hour speed, then an auto running at the rate of 80 miles per hour is running without the guidance of the brain, and the many disastrous results are not to be marveled at.”
-The New York Times, March 24, 1920

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?”
-Associates of David Sarnoff, RCA Executive, 1926

“The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most.”
-IBM Executives to The Xerox Corporation, 1959

“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
-Darryl Zannuck, 20^th Century Fox, 1946

“X-Rays will prove to be a hoax.”
-Lord Kelvin, President of The Royal Society, 1883

“Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.”
-Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology, Toulouse, 1872

“How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense.”
-Napoleon Bonaparte regarding the steamboat, 1800

“No one will pay good money to get from Berlin to Potsdam on a train in one hour when he can ride his horse there in one day for free.”
-King William I of Prussia, 1864

“As you may well know, Mr. President, ‘railroad’ carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by ‘engines’ which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.”
-Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, United States President, 1830

“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.”
-Dionysis Larder, Professor at University College, London, 1823

“I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.”
-H.G. Wells, 1901

“So many centuries after the Creation, it is unlikely that anyone could find hitherto unknown lands of any value.”
-Committee advising King Ferdinand of Spain regarding a proposal by Christopher Columbus, 1486

“The view that the sun stands motionless at the center of the universe is foolish, philosophically false, utterly heretical…the view that the earth is not the center of the universe and even has a daily rotation is philosophically false, and at least an erroneous belief.”
-Roman Catholic Church, 1616

“If Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony is not by some means abridged, it will soon fall into disuse.”
-Philip Hale, Music Critic, 1837

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.”
-Associates of Edwin L. Drake, First businessman to drill for oil, 1859

“The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it…knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient.”
-Dr. Alfred Velpeau, surgeon, 1839

“We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.”
-Simon Newcomb, astronomer, 1888

“The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote.”
-Albert A. Michelson, physicist, 1894

What can’t YOU do today?

I got this sentence from Ryan Holiday’s excellent book, Stillness Is The Key. It struck me instantly as simple, attainable and a pathway to peaceful living that can be accessed at will.

We spend a lot of time trying to do the next. The next is defined differently by each of us, but it might make better sense when I say that it is not the now. When we are trying to do the next, we’re skipping over this moment, opportunity, person, situation and focusing on a future one. Oftentimes, we’re focusing on a future moment we hope will be, but don’t have any guarantee or promise that it will be. We also don’t usually have the skill to bring it about, either. We just deceive ourselves that we do. Mostly we just wish the now was other than what it is. We wish the next was now.

When we do that often enough, over a long enough period of time, we train ourselves to live lives outside of the present moment regularly. We’re not available for what is now. The pages of history are filled with the stories of those who missed a moment trying to achieve the next and accomplished neither.

I’m a racing fan, and I remember a driver who was prominent in IndyCars (CART) and NASCAR in the late eighties through early two-thousands. He had moderate success and everyone expected he would be a consistent race winner and series champion. He stayed in several major racing series for many years and always attracted big dollar sponsorship and team contracts, driving for top teams before creating and driving for his own. He just never won much and never seriously contended for a championship. Ever. I will never forget an article I read about him in a wide-scale racing publication. The quote, as best as I can recall it went something like this: “The thing about him is he is always on his way to the next thing.” He wasn’t living what could have been lived, he was living the next. His results showed that consistently over a career that spanned decades.

My oldest friend from childhood and I still stay in touch. We’re both busy with families and careers and are separated by some miles, so we call each other on our birthdays, which are spaced half a year apart. This January when it was my turn to make the semi-annual call, I got some really rotten news. She has a rare form of cancer, it’s terminal and while they can manage and extend some quality of life, they can’t say whether it will be a year, five years or twenty. Medical science doesn’t have those kind of answers right now.

When she broke the news, and we began to discuss details, I expected tears – from both of us – and hurt, sadness, “why me?” and all those things that would naturally come from a diagnosis like that. And I’m sure when she first got the news, there was probably some of that, but when we talked, she’d come to a place of acceptance. Her attitude on the phone was “this is the life I have, the hand I’m dealt and I’m going to live it until I can’t.” She is living what can be lived.

I really respect that level of maturity and admire her a lot. It brings some perspective about the things that really matter and what they are.

There is nothing wrong with dreaming about and planning for the future. We’re unwise if we fail to do either. But those are not things we do in real time. We do them in our quiet times, or with our loved ones, partners, friends and associates. We schedule planning meetings, we develop strategic plans, we have five year goals and the like. We usually establish steps along the way that need to be taken and markers we can identify to track and gauge our progress. Those are all correct and needful things to do.

But once those things are done, written down and decided upon, we get there by taking one step, then the next and the one after that. Living what can be lived is doing the thing today in the now that gets me to that future, but is focusing on the current step. Doing what can be done and doing it with excellence as though it was the goal itself. There is a saying, “How you do one thing is how you’ll do everything.” To me, that is a great summation of the point I am making. The excellence with which each step is done – done properly and in the moment – will be the quality with which the goal is reached. Most high achievers have gone beyond their goals and dreams because excellence in each moment had a compounding effect, such that when the final product was achieved it was so much better than had been hoped for.

Living what can be lived must walk hand-in-hand with acceptance. We cannot be in denial about what is and live currently, that is just obvious on its face. Yet, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve all done it from time to time. I catch myself quite often doing it. The benefit of having practiced this for some time is that I can recognize when I’m feeling unsettled and stuck in a thing I am working on and the usual culprit for me is looking beyond the present moment, denying what is now and fretting about how to get to the future. I’m finding it very beneficial to build a discipline into my daily life of taking some quiet time just to settle myself, especially my fast-running mind, do some deep breathing and just slow down and bring myself back to now, with acceptance!

Tomorrow is going to come. There is no need to hurry it up, and it cannot be slowed down or stopped. It will arrive right on time. Even Jesus told his disciples tomorrow will have its own troubles, keep your focus on today. When Peter asked Jesus about another of His disciples life and future, He told him what does it matter what happens to that guy? You do you. While He didn’t say the exact words, He said, in essence, Peter, live what can be lived, not what can’t. You can’t live the other guy’s life, so don’t worry about it, live yours.

One of my life heroes is Nick Vujicic, a man born with no limbs. He is the embodiment of living what can be lived. He’ll never play in a sports league. He’ll never run a marathon. He’ll never drive a car, fly a jet, sail a yacht or ride a motorcycle. He will however speak to over three million people, in sixty countries, on five continents, author eight books and change untold numbers of lives with his message of how to live a life without limits. He has, is and will continue to live what can be lived.

Living what can be lived is not a sell-out phrase. It’s not quitting or throwing in the towel. It is the opposite of those things. It is accepting the stark reality of exactly what is and asking a really simple question: “What can I do?” It does not consider what it cannot do, that is irrelevant and cannot lead anyone to anywhere.

Consider your present reality and add to this list. In this moment, as I’m writing this, here’s a short list of things I’ve thought of that I can’t do: I can’t race a Formula One car. I can’t play for my NHL hockey team. I can’t climb Mount Everest. I can’t out cook Gordon Ramsey, I can’t hang glide, I can’t ski, I can’t run a four minute mile….need I go on? For every one of us there is an eternal list of what we can’t do. So what, who cares? What can I do? What can you do? Do any of us want to be the next Stephen King? Then let’s live what can be lived. Start writing, take a class, sign up for masterclass.com – the list of what we can do is also eternally long.

What we choose to focus on determines so much. Attitude determines altitude. There is a part of our brain that is programmed to believe what we tell it about ourselves. Are we feeding it with the things we can’t do? Are we telling it all about what we lack, or are we giving it fuel to achieve the good things we want from life? This isn’t some glass half full/glass half empty argument I’m making. This is actual neuroscience. The lives we have today have a lot to do with the things we’ve told ourselves in our yesterdays. It’s a natural jump, then, to understanding that to have the life we want tomorrow will be better aided by what we tell ourselves today.

It’s not oversimplification, it’s choice. Nowhere on this blog will anyone hear me say that it’s simple or easy, because it’s not. It’s hard, it takes conviction and sweat and it will cost us. But you will hear me say it is possible and worth it. In spades. If anyone else ever did it, so can we. All they did was choose to pay the price, no matter the cost.

Let’s start living what can be lived today. Let’s start doing what can be done. Let’s start asking what those things are. Let’s reconnect with those lost parts of ourselves and stop denying ourselves the best life we could have when we discover that’s what we’re doing. It’s up to us, it’s about our choices. We are writing the stories of our lives. They might as well be awesome ones.

Psalm 23:5 starts out “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…”. Picture that in your mind. Feasting at a table laden with every good thing you enjoy while all around you, your enemies are thrashing about, yelling insults, making threats, hurling abuse – but not daring to approach or attack. What a crazy scene! Not too far from a lot of experiences we’ve all had, just without the swords and shields.

It’s so easy to want to insult and fight back. Our enemies expect this from us, even. Yet, how many times in books and movies have we admired that character that refused to come down to their enemies’ level? They had some internal fortitude to take the abuse and the slander, look it in the face and not be moved by it in the slightest. More importantly, they did not let what others said about them change their internal dialogue of who they knew themselves to be.

In the Harry Potter series, when Dumbledore is surrounded by his enemies and is verbally abused for his etiquette, he is asked if he thinks his “jokes” will save him. “Jokes?”, he replies, “No, these are manners.” Class and character in the face of impending death.

I see it as a picture of what could be and should be in our lives when we are faced with difficult people. At home, at work, even at play, there are those who seek to put us down, insult us, talk behind our backs and in so many other ways attempt to make our lives miserable.

If you haven’t caught it, there is a recurring theme in all of my posts on this blog. At all times, in all situations, regardless of the dynamic, we have the power to choose how we will respond. We have the ability to reach within ourselves and decide who we will be in any given situation. It isn’t easy and most of the time it’s not even “fair”. In my experience, we will have to accept that we’ll be seen to be in the wrong when we know the opposite to be true. But it is possible.

The obvious question is how can we develop that kind of internal messaging? How do we move from replying in kind to not being moved from the core of who we want to be and replying from that place, instead? Questions like this are what I have asked myself and when I have failed, asked again.

I have a wonderful mentor in my life who has helped me understand some of the unseen but very real forces behind adversarial interactions. For each of us – ourselves and our adversaries – it starts with the recognition and acceptance of who we truly see ourselves to be on the inside. Do we like or loathe ourselves? Are we primarily givers or takers? Are we often concerned for others, or only ourselves?

Asking ourselves these kinds of questions, and determining who we choose to be – who we are committed to be – in challenging relational situations is how we can prepare ourselves for the inevitable. Joyce Meyer says “hurting people hurt people” and she is so right. Most of the people we encounter who come at us attacking, maligning, using their words as weapons are hurting inside. That’s not to excuse them from their actions, wrong is wrong. But being armed with that knowledge, and being fueled with the inner commitment to respond from a place of character, rather than our own place of hurt, we can begin to rise above the painful relationships and situations that are going to be a regular part of our lives. Hurting people are not going to go away, we are going to have to deal with them. But we can sit at our internal table of feasting in the midst of the angst all around us, if we so choose.

When we start having success in our response tree, we can begin to proactively prepare for these antagonistic interactions. Rather than avoid or run away from them, we can get ready for them and if not go on the offensive, at least walk into them forearmed. We will never have complete control of situations that involve others, but when we can walk into them in control of ourselves, we become the power player in the setting. While others thrash about with their words, emotions and actions, we will have the ability to remain calm, cool and collected. Many people I know, myself included, incorporate meditation and positive affirmation into their daily lives as a tool to build inner strength and reinforce the inner image of who we are and who we are determined to remain and become.

When we take the time, ahead of time, to build in ourselves declarations of purpose, peace, will and choice we truly do go on the offensive, just on the inside. Rather than having a passive internal dialogue, we begin to develop a purposeful, active one. The part of our brain that governs our self-talk is incapable of differentiating between truth and falsehood. It combines past experience with feelings and when the feeling or experience shows up in the present, it tells us “this is that!”. It is simply a response machine. But, we can begin to reprogram it and tell it a different story. Rather than becoming reaction machines like so many around us, we can develop the ability to choose our reactions. We are no longer slaves to the reaction machine, but we begin to control it and make it serve us.

When we find ourselves in situations where others are behaving unreasonably, rather than panic or become frustrated and upset, we can have a deep well of inner calmness in reserve that we can tap into and bring to the forefront. There are actual careers where people are trained in this kind of response tree mechanism. Hostage negotiators, therapists, diplomats, politicians and corporate executives are just a few examples. These are people in the midst of the firestorm, in the public eye who have no other choice but to bring these skills to bear in order to have successful resolutions and outcomes. There is no margin for error when lives, elections and shareholder votes are won or lost by a word well spoken, or a casual comment spoken in the foolishness of a heated moment.

Fortunately, most of us will never face these types of dire situations, at least I hope not. But regardless of the situation we do find ourselves in, I hope that we’re able to tap into this place of power that is available to all without consideration of age, education or experience. Choice is the one thing that we all have in common. Choice is the one thing we all exercise at all times, in every situation. As Neil Peart penned, no doubt tongue-in-cheek, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

Let’s begin to see ourselves not as powerless over difficult people, but the opposite. We are the ones, who through reasoned choices, exercise our power. We are the ones who make time to better ourselves, to fortify ourselves against the day of adversity we are sure to face. We are the ones who instead of being buffeted by circumstance, dictate to circumstances by controlling ourselves. We may not be able to control the outcome of external situations, but we can and should always control the internal ones and that will lead to better external ones in the long run.

Lastly, in the bandwidth that represents our choice options, let’s never forget that we have the power to choose to walk away from people who refuse to change. Let’s not deceive ourselves. There are those out there who are committed to their provocations, who have no interest in self control or personal excellence. Let’s not despise or denigrate them, rather have pity and pray for them. Those are people stuck in hurts and self-loathing we may not be able to conceive of. As my mentor says, sometimes you just have to give people the gift of struggle. We’re all on our path, we’re all learning, all discovering. We are blessed to be the ones discovering things about ourselves and choosing to implement things to grow and improve.

Let’s put into practice what we know and let’s strive to get better. Every day, in every way, lets get better and better. Thank you, Mark Fisher for The Instant Millionaire, a book I cannot recommend highly enough to anyone reading this post.

Learning to flourish in the midst of provocation is an active process. It is never completed, only increased or decreased to the measure that we practice it. I hope that as we live our lives and face our challenges, we will inspire others to begin and learn to flourish in theirs, but ultimately that choice is theirs. As the saying goes, be the change you want to see in the world. This is how it begins.

We’ve all had things we dreamed of becoming or doing when we were younger. Many of them were immature ideas of youth. We wanted to be a fireman, a dancer, a football star, an astronaut, a doctor. When we said it as a child, we only saw the outside of it – the result. We didn’t really understand what it truly was to be and become that thing. Our parents told us we could become anything we wanted to, and for the most part, they were right. But I’m not thinking of any of those types of things.

I’m thinking about the real dream, not the wish of childhood or adolescence. That time in our lives when we saw for the first time something that sparked us. Something we thought we could actually do – something we wanted to do; craved to do. We may not have had any idea how to get there, but deep inside at a more mature level, we somehow knew we could do it and we wanted to.

For many of us, not knowing in that moment how to get to the realization of that dream, we reverted back to normal daily life and what was known. Maybe we were in school with the daily grind and commitment that was required to succeed there. Maybe we had home lives that required extra of us and parents that kept us focused on a single track to their vision of a successful life, like finishing school, getting a degree, a good job and a career. Some of us may have had family that let us know in no uncertain terms what they expected of us. They chose our school and career for us, and let us know how deep their disappointment would be if we didn’t comply. Some of us may have had a family life where there was no expectation or encouragement at all.

There are probably thousands of reasons why that initial spark of a dream got derailed in our lives, and for many of us, at a time when we were too young or lacked the self-confidence to advocate for ourselves, stand up and say “no” to the expectations of parents, family, friends, teachers or bosses. Sadly, statistics tell us that ninety-two percent of us never do achieve these ambitions. For many of us, we reach adulthood and if we take the time to look back, we realize all the ways that the responsibilities of the moment simply got in the way. Our lives became a series of “priorities” that led us away from that thing we’d always wanted to do or become.

But the spark still remains. We may feel it when we see or read about someone doing the thing we always wanted to do. We might see it in our children or grandchildren and be reminded that once upon a time, there was a belief that we could do or achieve it. Sadly, some of us attempt to live those lost dreams through our children. We all know that “sports parent” we dread seeing at our kids’ soccer game. Even sadder, some just give up and look back wistfully thinking “if only”.

I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying “what would you dare to do if you knew you could not fail?” I think it’s a worthwhile question to ask ourselves, especially when we’ve reached a stage in our lives where we have come to accept that we’re really not satisfied with the direction our lives are going – that there is more, we’re just not sure what. It’s not to suggest that we abandon our current lives and responsibilities to pursue our dream. But surely, we could do something. Take a step in that direction, no matter how small and insignificant? Dare to dream again, this time with adult resources and the power to make mature choices.

The idea of reconnecting with lost parts of ourselves speaks to a time in our lives when external things looked just they way they were supposed to look. Career in full swing, nice car, nice house, two kids and a wife as the song goes. No one looking from the outside could see anything askew, but internally we were hungry for more, just not more of the same. Someone I know once said their life felt like it was being lived to earn the money to pay for it. The picture in my mind was the hamster on the wheel going nowhere. Sure, it looks like it’s going somewhere fast, but when it’s all said and done, nothing was really accomplished. The hamster might have believed differently, but it went to sleep in the same cage it woke up in every day.

I’ve taken the time to slow down, be quiet and really ask myself – what would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail? What is the dream – or dreams – I have put to the side that I’d love to be able to achieve? What things fill up my life right now that I would gladly get rid of to begin chasing desires I’ve always wanted to pursue?

For me, the pandemic provided the opportunity I needed to attempt those changes. With so many of life’s “normals” shut down, like everyone else I suddenly found myself with huge blocks of free time. Places I “had to” go to weren’t accessible. Things I “had to” do weren’t able to be done. People I “had to” interact with in person weren’t available to be met with. Because I had a mentor in my life encouraging me to ask myself this question, and a ready-made occasion via covid to fill up my newly found free time, I did. I’ve always wanted to write. It started with journaling, to which I’ve added this blog. I’ve only started, there’s more to come.

I’m asking those who are reading this – if time and money were no obstacle, what would you spend your life chasing after? Would you write a book? Learn a new language? Teach? Learn an instrument? Start a garden? Learn to cook? Take flying lessons? Travel places you’ve never been? Go back to school?

As I review that list, they seem to be such big things, but are they really? Anyone who ever achieved anything started somewhere. They started small, in obscurity. Everything that has even been invented by anyone at some point, early in its development, was ridiculed. It takes a lot of courage to make changes, and I am not suggesting that anything new will be easy just because it is desired. But if we’re hungry, committed and unwilling to quit, I am suggesting it will be possible. We will never, ever find out unless we try.

One of the greatest truths I have come to understand is this: Life doesn’t happen to us unless we let it. We have been given the power of choice, which means we have the ability to direct our lives. We have been conditioned to assume that what has transpired in our lives was just “meant to be” and many of us live as though we’re passengers along for the ride, rather than directors in the story of our lives.

In the movie Contact, Ellie Arroway discovers alien life in another part of the galaxy and is assumed to be the one chosen to travel to meet them. As she answers the selection committee questions honestly, she doesn’t tell them what they want to hear, but what she holds to be true. She is beaten out by a candidate who panders to the committee and is chosen over her. Later, when they meet, he tells Ellie, “I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line, where the kind of idealism you showed at the hearing was rewarded, not taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world,” to which she replies, “Funny, I’ve always believed that the world is what we make it.”

What could we make our worlds if we believed in and chose to follow our dreams? What lives could we live and what impact could that have on others? Are we writing the story of our lives, or are we allowing the pages to be written for us, blindly following along? What would we dare to attempt if we knew we could not fail? What are the lost parts of ourselves that we can reconnect to? I truly hope that when this is read, we’ll set aside some quiet time and ask ourselves those questions and allow our hearts to generate honest and brave answers.

Some of us may find that we are living in ways and doing things just as we’ve always wanted. I hope that’s most of us. If that’s not the case, there’s still time. There is always time to start. The ending of our story has not yet been written, and we hold the pen. I believe life offers us the choice to write what happens next. Dream big, then take the next step.

I recently ended a project I had been working on with a partner. I had spent almost five years, a lot of time and a sizeable amount of money on it. I decided to walk away from the enterprise because it had not achieved any of the objectives I had expected it to. As a matter of fact, I felt the needle hadn’t even moved in the direction I was hoping for, had it done so, I would certainly have been incented to keep going. This is not to say that there was nothing positive that was achieved, but for the time, effort and investment I had made, I found the return to be insufficient, all the more so because my main reason for getting involved never began to materialize.

My partner in the project was willing and eager to continue and expressed their disappointment and feelings of abandonment that I was not. Their opinion was that we had agreed to start together, and we should agree to end together. They felt that I was making a unilateral decision which was unfair in their eyes.

There are certain situations, like the one I’ve just described, where compromise is important because there is more than one interest and in a team approach and effort, all voices should be heard. However, in this case, I had many times over several years raised the objection that the direction I was hoping things would move in was not happening, and I was getting frustrated with the lack of progress toward it. I felt I had already compromised by spending as much time and investment as I had done up until that point.

Sometimes, when we have not just time, money and energy invested, but emotion, faith and hope and one person, or several seek to pull out of a team effort, those left behind will usually feel as though they’ve been let down, or like my friend, abandoned. It’s completely understandable, and those like me, who are doing the leaving can struggle with guilt over the aftermath of hurt feelings as a result.

Many of us have left jobs, volunteer positions, teams or group situations where we had been heavily depended upon. Those are hard decisions to make, and we often struggle internally for weeks, even years beforehand because we know we’ll disappoint someone. When we finally make the break – which if we’re really honest with ourselves we knew we should have made long ago – we struggle with the pain that our decision has aroused in others.

The purpose of this post, and what I tried to explain to my partner was not to see it as a tack I was taking against them, but something I was doing for me. That’s a really important distinction that can get lost in the emotion of the moment – on both sides of the decision. With every choice we make, there are others we didn’t. If we choose to stay, we’ve chosen not to leave. If we commit our financial support in one direction, it is unavailable in a different one. When we move out of one situation, we’re moving into another.

By choosing to move on, I made a choice for me. I made a choice to move in a new direction. Attitude is everything, and had I done so in a condemnatory or accusatory way, blaming my partner, circumstances or outside influences, I wouldn’t be taking responsibility. By owning myself, my feelings and my inner convictions, it allowed me to act in accordance with those values for myself, not against anyone or anything.

Accusations of selfishness are bound to follow, and from the outside looking at the decision I made for me, I suppose its understandable. But it is also incorrect. I’ve said in an earlier post, we cannot give what we don’t have. I didn’t have the energy to continue, and hadn’t for quite some time. In trying to keep going, I was stealing from inner resources that belonged elsewhere. I wasn’t being true to myself, my purpose, my values.

To remain as we are out of guilt or obligation would be to live in self-deception. We are likely to end up more miserable and tensions, frustrations and anger will eventually mount. Arguments begin and can become explosive. Relationships will go from being hurt – a temporary event – to being harmed, a much more significant one with long term consequences.

Advocating for ourselves is not selfishness, it is self-preservation and it is a critical skill to develop, and a challenging one to deliver. When we begin to stand up for ourselves, especially when we go against the group, there will usually be ruffled feathers and hurt feelings.

Many of us like the status quo even if, all things being equal, we’d like to move on as well. Sometimes, the fact that one of us dares to self-advocate and move on acts as a convicting mechanism for others of us who have given up or settled. We don’t want to admit that to ourselves, naturally, so we assign blame and guilt. The truth is those of us who remain behind often have lost the ability to consider another viewpoint. We may have deceived ourselves into thinking that to do so might lessen the value of the thing we’re involved in, in some way. If we’re not careful, we can end up caught in echo chamber thinking.

But those of us who consider where we are and where we’re headed and regularly check it against where we’re wanting to go will naturally make course corrections along the way. We allow ourselves to be guided by an inner compass based on a value system we create and protect. Nothing about this is against anyone at all. If we’re driving from Miami to New York and discover we’re on Route 10 heading west, we’re going to make an adjustment. It makes perfect sense in a car, just as it does in the kinds of situations we’re considering. We wouldn’t have anything against Mobile, San Antonio or Phoenix, we just want to go to New York.

As I look back and think of some of the decisions I have made to go out of so I could go into, in nearly every situation there was someone, or a group of people who had something negative, discouraging and even disparaging to say about my decision.

As I am writing this, I stopped to ask myself how did I react when someone chose to leave the group dynamic that I remained in? Was I that person, or part of that group that took offense or made it personal? Sure enough, I can recall times where I didn’t handle my responses as well as I should have. As I am learning how to self-advocate, I choose to extend the same grace to others that I would wish to receive from them when my time comes.

But in every one of those situations I’ve just mentioned, there were also those, even if just one, who encouraged me to follow my path. Instead of words of discouragement, some offered wisdom and advice that came from their experience and knowledge. Their encouragement came with guidance. In a time of difficult transition that kind of voice can be strength for us to keep going, to make the brave move – the conviction move. I’ve learned to seek those people out. I’ve learned to start there, looking for their counsel. The Bible says “In the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom.”

When we choose to go out of because our heart is leading us into something else, as we’re in the process we should seek those wise advisors out. They’ve been there before and they will have a nugget of wisdom, a practical idea or a warning of danger to avoid. Their input will also give us the strength we need for the moment we will have to tell those who are not following us that we are moving on.

As we go forth into our new endeavor and as we begin to flourish and succeed, without a doubt we will come across the path of one who is going out of where we find ourselves, and into the next that their path has laid out for them. Let’s remember to not just focus on the loss we may be feeling in that moment, but remind ourselves of the time when we were making the same choice. Let’s remember the comfort, direction and guidance we received from those who had travelled the path before us, and let’s be that for those who choose to be true to their vision. We’re all in this thing called life together. Many of us are heading in the direction our hearts are leading us, and this means we’re all going out of and into time and time again. Let’s choose to be those who quickly accept the hurt of our loss, which we’ve said is only temporary, and in that moment impart kindness and help to those who are moving on, using the lessons and encouragements we’ve received as we’ve walked our path. It will help to heal the sting of our loss a little more quickly, and who knows? One day down the road we may cross paths again and the goodwill we gave and received will lead to stronger relationships, larger opportunities and more fulfilling lives.

I spend a lot of time on my deck in my back yard, taking in nature. I love the wind in the trees, watching the seasons unfold from spring to fall, the change of colors from dismal grey to vibrant florals to multiple shades of green.

In the fall, I watch and hear the acorns fall as the squirrels scurry to and fro gathering, eating and storing up. There are only two career paths for an acorn; the ground or a critters stomach. The acorn has an interesting life cycle. It spends the earliest part of its life swinging on a tree branch, high in the air. It overlooks the grass, sees the other trees, communes with the birds that nest in, or rest on its branches. It is surrounded by life and beauty during the most attractive parts of the seasonal cycle.

And then, the fall winds come and the acorn falls from its former lofty position. Worse yet, if not eaten, it gets planted. I say worse, because – for the duration of this little narrative – put your mind in the acorn. See yourself growing in the breeze, attached to the life of the tree. Looking over the valley, or the forest where you’ve been born, taking in the sun, the rain, the plant and animal life blooming and growing all around you. There are songs of birds, chitters of animals; you’re new, young, ambitious and all around you is the abundance of life and your mind is full of hope and opportunity.

And then suddenly, and without ceremony or warning, you’re in dirt. Then it gets cold. And dark. No more beauty, no more colors, no more light, no more life.

We’ve all been there. We’ve had our plans, our dreams, our freshly minted degrees, our brand-new jobs, our new spouse or child. Life was good, life was happening, life was moving according to plan. And then we got blindsided. Sickness, death, setback, loss. Things that came from directions we never anticipated. Injustices that happened to us or to those we love. Storms of life that came out of nowhere, things we never asked for, never wanted and wouldn’t have wished on our enemies.

In those moments, and the days and weeks following – much like the acorn – how will we respond? Will we deem ourselves buried? Or planted?

You see, if you’ve been buried, you’re dead. As humans, we only bury dead things. There’s not much else to talk about here. Buried is death and death is final. BUT – like the acorn, covered in moist, smelly, creepy crawly bug infested dirt – in the darkness and aloneness of the ground, separated from all the gloriousness of its former reality, if we can find the strength to tell ourselves a different story; that we’ve just been planted, not buried, we can turn our dirt into fuel. We can use dirt to change ourselves and our circumstances into better than what was. That planted acorn is on its way to becoming a tree, it just doesn’t know it yet.

Inside that acorn all along was a tree. The acorn didn’t even consider the possibility, it was happy being an acorn. But life had better in store for it, and dirt was the process of getting there. When that acorn follows its genetic code, it goes from drawing life from a tree to becoming a life-giver in its own right. It becomes a producer of other trees, a provider of homes for bugs, squirrels and birds, a shade giver for ground dwellers and strength for soil to produce plants and food for humans and animals alike.

I am not making light of pain or suffering. Loss hurts, and grief is not only real but must be properly processed. But in that process – and it is a process that takes time, care and a lot of hard work – I hope we’re thinking and asking what’s next? I understand that it feels difficult, maybe even impossible; I’ve had dreams shattered and hopes destroyed and wanted to quit. But no matter what we have faced or are facing in life, we must find a way forward, or we truly become buried, and that by choice. Some live the rest of their lives buried. We all know people living buried lives. It is the quintessential “less than” kind of life.

So, here we are in the dirt of life with our hopes or dreams seemingly shattered, wanting to move forward and trying to process the reality of being covered in dirt. We must remind ourselves that this dirt has nutrients. This dirt has power, it has life. You wouldn’t know it to look at it – and when properly fertilized, you certainly wouldn’t know it to smell it – but this dirt that is covering us hasn’t buried us. It’s our source of strength and power for next and better. If you’re reading this and finding yourself covered with the dirt of life, I have good news! You are being prepared for something greater. It’s the function of dirt.

I admire John Elway. I admire his resilience and refusal to quit. He quarterbacked some really strong teams into Super Bowls XXI, XXII and XXIV. And got smoked, 39-20, 42-10 and 55-10. That’s not losing, that’s getting destroyed. After those three losses, it took seven long seasons to get back to the Super Bowl, including going 13-2 as a starter and losing in the 1^st round of the playoffs six years after the last Super Bowl loss.

But he never quit. I’m sure he’d tell you he got down plenty of times. When you’re the best in the league and get knocked out in the 1^st round, that stings. You have to start asking yourself, “Is it meant to be?”. When you lead three teams of men of excellence to the pinnacle of your sport only to crash and burn in front of millions of fans, family and viewers, you have got to have doubts if you have a shred of humanity in you.

But he never considered himself buried. As Daymond John says, Rise and Grind. Elway did it, finally winning Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII, retiring a champion and ensuring his first ballot entry into the NFL Hall Of Fame. He turned his dirt into his fuel and it powered him to the ultimate level of his sport.

What are we doing with our dirt? Complaining? Protesting? Are we stuck on the unfairness of life, or are we telling life how hard we’re going to hit it in the mouth as we get back up? I am not saying any of this will be easy – matter of fact, I’ll go ahead and tell you it will be hard and it will hurt. A lot. But I will also tell you that it will be possible, and when you look back in triumph, it will have been worth it. If you do not quit, you will win. There is simply no other option. 50 Cent said “Get rich or die tryin’”. There is zero quit in that statement. By the way, he got rich. REALLY rich. Getting richer by the day, still. This after nine bullets were removed from his body after a failed assassination attempt.

In the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne had been convicted of a murder he didn’t commit and not only had proof, but even evidence as to who the killer was – the man was right there in the very same prison. The warden wouldn’t hear of it and had the only witness who could testify shot and killed. Andy turned his dirt into the fuel that would not only help him engineer his escape from prison, but prove that the warden was corrupt and had been using his position of power to run a racketeering operation using prisoners as slave labor. In one of the final scenes, on the day of his escape, talking to another prisoner, Red, Andy said “It comes down to a simple choice, really. Either get busy living, or get busy dying.” As Red said, that’s damn right. This is the choice we’re offered when we face the cruelties life can throw at us. Get busy living, or get busy dying. We can be buried, or we can be planted. The choice is ours. Make a good one.