A Thursday to Ponder

When is a door not a door?  You know the answer to that riddle. 

When is a life not your life?  That riddle has a complex answer.  Maybe the more appropriate question to ask is “Is this life yours?”  Do you feel unduly impacted, sidetracked, affected or materially influenced by events or occurrences outside of your control?

We can answer yes to portions, or all, of that question if we examine a snapshot or two in time.  Nobody can control 100% of life.  If you believe you can, you may be adding levels of anxiety to your world.  I know, belief is in the mind, heart and soul of the beholder.  I’m not telling you “not” to attempt to exert influence over life.  We exert influence with every action.  Some actions generate positive reactions.  Other actions generate negative reactions.  If you’re like me you recognize that negative reactions aren’t bad if you are prepared for the consequences – if measured and calculated and you anticipated the negativity.

Therein lies the rub.  You can influence but you can’t always predict the outcome.  Hence my caution that overexpressing the desire to control can lead to unsettled outcomes.

It’s your call, my friends.  Does that overexpression give you the modicum of control you need to call life yours?  Do you own it regardless of the outcome?

You’re probably wondering where I banged my head and if I should consider an MRI.  I think you’ve experienced at least one person who crossed your path wearing Teflon.  That person blamed everyone else for their situation.  Painfully obvious that person was attempting to control their without regard for owning their life or the impact on others.

Dilemma number one; how to control those personalities and keep them from dumping on you.  I read a book in the late 1970s titled the One Minute Manager.  Ken Blanchard’s eighty-page tome has withstood the test of time.  He professes the need to disallow others to deposit their monkey onto your back – relieving themselves of a problem at your expense.  You can choose to accept the monkey, feed and nurture it until it grows into a backbreaking gorilla of a problem.  Or you can decide not to accept another’s castoffs.  If you’ve been accused of anything you’re picking up what I’m laying down.

It’s your decision and it’s your life (or is it?) so act accordingly.  Own everything and you will thrive.  Don’t measure your degree of success against the successes of others.  Their circumstances are different.  There are no duplicates, no exact replicas, no carbon copies (now I’m really dating myself). There are extraneous circumstances of which you may not be aware. You can, however, learn from the experiences of others.

Love and Hugs, Nikki DeCaro