The other day, I met a woman who asked me what I did.  When I told her that I help people make desired changes in their lives so they can be their best selves and enjoy greater success and satisfaction, she asked me if I could help her switch over from a hard copy calendar to an electronic one.  I asked her why she wanted to do that.  Her answer: “I don’t.”  “So, why then, do you want me to help you do it,” I asked.  She went on to tell me that everyone she knew seemed to have converted and she thought she ought to, too.  I was tempted to ask her the question my mother used to ask me when I was little and wanted to do what my friends were doing.  You know the one… “If Suzy jumped off the Golden Gate bridge would you do it too?”  But, I held my tongue.  Here’s what I did ask her:

1.  Does what you are doing now work for you?

2.  Do you like doing it the way you are currently doing it?

3.  Does how you’re doing it now work for the people in your life that are affected by it?

She answered ‘yes’ to all three questions.  Then I asked her one final question:

Do you think your life or the lives of others who matter to you would be enhanced in anyway by your changing how you keep your calendar?

Her answer to that question was no.

So, if it ain’t broke, and enhancing it won’t provide benefit, don’t mess with it!  There are plenty of challenges you can take on in your life that are worthy of your effort.  Focus your energy on those and leave the rest alone.

It’s my way or the highway!  I don’t really think of myself as being characterized that way but my thoughts recently may indicate a move in that direction.  I’ve noticed that when someone suggests doing something in a way that is not the way I would do it, I am quick to label it ‘wrong’.  As I sit here now, with a little distance from those conversations, that seems a bit arrogant.  After all, if they are wrong, I must be right.  So, who died and made me arbiter of all things right and wrong?  Come to think of it, there are not a lot of things in this universe that have only one right and one wrong way of being done.  So, ‘not my way’ is different but not necessarily wrong.  It may or may not result in the same outcome, but, who says my outcome is the right outcome?  Thinking different vs. wrong opens up a whole world.  Different makes me curious; it makes me want to explore, learn, understand.  It requires an openness and may even cause me to change my view, embrace a new perspective, grow.  Different opens doors and creates possibility.  Wrong on the other hand, shuts me down, has me defend my position, judge another.  “How could anyone in their right mind think or do that?”  Wrong keeps me small and contained in my safe little box.  Wrong makes me dislike and distrust.  Even thinking about the two perspectives impacts how I feel.  When I consider seeing something as ‘different’, I feel relaxed, expansive and open, when I think about the judgment that something or someone is wrong, I feel tight and tense.  My reaction is fight or flight.  So, I need to change my thinking.  I need to stop myself the second I notice my ‘right/wrong’ thinking and choose to label it as different.  But first, I need to take the high road and apologize to the people I’ve judged and sent down the highway.  I’m going to vow to hear my husband, my kids, my friends, my mother differently, openly.