Tag: Responsibility

What if there were no mistakes?

When I review my life, I see many colors. Colors which represent the good and the bad. All the good things about my life are the very bright colors – things like the success stories I have, fears I have conquered or the birth of my three children. And then there are the dark colors – things that I regret doing, saying, and falling for. The dark colors represent the times when I was a sucker. They are blemishes that prove I’m not perfect.

I had a thought while I did this review: What if everything that has happened to me was not an accident or a mistake? What if the things that happened to me were my destiny and that a higher power had purposed and set some things in motion to bring me to a certain point? What if the words “accident” and “mistake” were all part of a big conspiracy to make us believe that we had a level of control we don’t really have?

I heard an atheist say once that God, the creator of the universe, was no more than an imaginary friend who we created because we were scared of death and the unknown. He said that everything that has happened was going to happen anyway and because of fear, we invented religion. Religion then gives us something to do when we’re scared.

I believe that there is some truth to what my atheist friend has said.

The truth is that I believe, we have been allowed to believe, that there are accidents and mistakes so as to point blame when something happens. This is not to be confused with things that we cause to happen that were not accidents. For example, another friend of mine lost his job. He started off telling me that his racist boss finally got rid of him. I asked what happened and he said that they made him take a random drug test and the marijuana he smoked last weekend was still in his system. Trying to keep from laughing I said, “So how does this make your boss racist?”

You can probably figure out the rest of the conversation. My friend lost his job because he was careless with it. Smoking illegal substances is a quick way to get fired from most jobs – especially in our economy. Not that it is impossible for his boss to be a racist – it’s still a challenge we face in the 21^st century. But even with this scenario, there was a deeper reason – other than stupidity – for him losing his job. When we lose things, there is a lesson in that. For my friend, the lesson was responsibility. More than anything else, he needs to be more responsible. He needs to take responsibility for his actions and stop blaming others. Blaming others is a diversion from learning the personal lessons.

What I want you to see is the beauty of trials and tribulations. I want you to understand the other side of a mistake. The point is that if we take away the concept of a mistake, then we would be clear to see the true destiny in the trial and we could “count it all joy.”

Remember the old record players that required a needle to play the vinyl records? If you are old enough to remember them, you will also remember that sometimes the needle would skip. A CD player will sometimes skip too. And in both cases we would know that either the player or the record or CD needs cleaning. Could I say that the CD or record player made a mistake? Think about it before you answer. Was there a mistake made or is the “skip” just a by-product of usage?

We don’t call it a mistake because we accept that things won’t work properly sometimes and we move on. Why can we not do this with our own mistakes?

I remember years ago when I left one research company to work for another one. The one I was going to was paying me 15K more to leave. I felt unappreciated at the current place, so I left. I worked for this new company for 19 months. I signed off on the construction of the building, I purchased all of the furniture and hired all 44 employees and set this research company up to run like a well-oiled machine. Once that was done, they let me go and hired another person with very little management experience. I have to say, looking back on the experience, that when they let me go it was one of the best things that happened to me. At the time, I thought I made a mistake leaving the other company. I shudder to think that I could still be at that other company, complacent, underpaid and miserable.

It would have been great if I could have taken the word “mistake” out of my vocabulary and automatically thought about the scripture in Romans 8:28.

October 11, 2014
The wonder of second chances

I loved every Rocky movie. The dialog, the training, the fights — I was always inspired even if at times the movie got a little corny.

Something about the underdog touches my heart. Rocky was about taking the hits and continuing to move forward. What a great lesson. But it seems there are too many people who have not learned this lesson. We go through life blaming other people and wishing for things we don’t have.

We’ll say things like, “I wish I had this”; “I wish I had done that”; or “if that didn’t happen I could have done such and such!” People are slow to recognize and seize the second chance. A second chance is an opportunity or a pause during the hits of life. It’s the time you get to regroup and go at it again. It is true that the things that don’t kill us, make us strong. There is a moment in every battle that is lost where you have a chance to go again. Second chances are all about believing a bigger picture and refocusing. It’s about digging deeper in places in your heart you didn’t know existed and then exploding out of the gate for another round.

With each failure comes a second chance. Some of us use the period of second chance for rehashing failures. We are stuck and can’t get over the loss. If you believe you are a winner, then no matter what the odds or failures, you will rise to fight again. If you question whether you’re a winner or not; if you are unsure of your abilities; or you are waiting to hear if someone else believes in you, then you are destined for failure. And this my friends is actually a choice. You are what you believe. Don’t let anyone change your positive outlook.

Step into the hits and keep moving forward. The war is yours to win and you need not worry about a few lost battles. Take the second chance!

October 26, 2013
Relationship Builder

So you started the New Year a little on the rocks with your significant other and now they’re gone. One or both of you finally realized that it was time to move on. Now it’s over.

You tell yourself that you are better without them. You start tossing out reminders of him, like pictures, various articles of clothing, some gifts (of course not any diamonds) and you quickly change your Facebook status to single.

You are left with unfulfilled expectations and anger.

Typically what happens at this point is that you say you want to be alone and you remind yourself that the next person would only be a rebound, but not too soon afterward you are smothering the rebound.

You begin to take those stored “unfulfilled expectations” and assign them to the new partner. You quickly find out that you are instantly attracted to anything that was the opposite of your ex. For example, if the guy you were with never opened the door for you, then all of a sudden that quality is escalated because of the past. If you were with a woman who really couldn’t cook too well, you’d be all over the woman who could provide you with the southern comfort of food.

The danger is that whatever the new quality is that you are coveting may not have been a quality that mattered to you originally. It only became important when your previous relationship ended. This relational baggage makes ordinary qualities greater, thus confusing your judgment and actually making you “rush” the relationship and not even be able to recognize true love anymore. I have a friend on Facebook who a month ago was “in a relationship”, then two weeks ago she was single. One week later she was “in a relationship” again and I called to ask if it was with the same person and she was so excited to tell me about this new guy and how wonderful he was. As of today, they are engaged!

Now I’m not saying that I don’t believe in love at first sight or any of the other fairytales given to us as children. I’m not saying that Hollywood’s boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl again stories aren’t true. What I am saying is that these situations are as rare as hitting the lottery, becoming a professional athlete, becoming the next American Idol or winning an Olympic gold medal. Oh sure you have seen it happen before and you know that it’s possible, but the question here is: Are these scenarios probable?

Before you try to “hook up” with another, you must first exam yourself. You can’t be “two” if you (or the other person) are not ones.

We often enter relationships broken, wounded and with baggage. We have high expectations and are afraid to fully give of ourselves. How many times have you seen a relationship where a couple is together, and the guy hasn’t been working since they hooked up. Nine months into the relationship and the guy still hasn’t found ANY work. Before he entered that relationship, he should have mastered the whole job/car/house/independence thing before trying to connect with another. And what of the man who meets a woman who needs more than just a companion? This woman needs a caretaker, lawyer, doctor, sugar daddy and butler – and she’s not afraid to ask for it! Every phone call leads to her asking him to do something for her. She should have worked out all those needs in the beginning, before trying to start a relationship.

Building a relationship should not be rocket science. It should start off with hesitation and anticipation. There should be long periods of talking and sharing (which is how you actually build the relationship) and a lot of patience.

Only fools rush in.

May 16, 2010