We tend to parcel our lives into two areas: Good and Bad. When things are running smoothly and life is good: to whom do we give the credit? Ourselves of course! This good fortune is due tour planning, foresight, knowledge, skills, financial prowess and so on.
When we fall on hard times and we hit a rough patch and life is not good; what do we do? Yes, we immediately look outside ourselves and point the finger and blame someone or something else.
The real question here is: “Is this conclusion true? Sadly we all fall prey to this way of thinking. We want our trouble to be someone else fault. Pride rears its ugly head and we don’t want to appear foolish, dumb, a poor decision maker, to our spouse, our family, our business partner, our boss, our customer, a neighbor or our friends, so we blame and point the finger elsewhere.
The reality is this:
When we become distracted and we allow other things to take the place of important things in our lives we open ourselves up for those “bad times”, because we lost our focus, our clarity and our ability to keep the things which are really important, IMPORTANT. When our willingness to let go of our vigilance to be lead astray and wander and let go of the little things here and that thinking that, oh I can do that later, and next Saturday, tomorrow, and eventually they all begin to add up and those good days and smooth running life, turns sour and bad very quickly.
Ask yourself: Is there a lesson I need to learn here?
Let’s look at some of those important areas in your life and see if you are on top of things or letting things slide into finger pointing.
Finances:
Yes, I am paying my bills on time, I put money away, I am saving for retirement, I plan my spending…..
No, I do not always pay my bills on time, I buy what I want when I want, I do not have a budget, retirement is decades away, I will plan later…
Relationships:
Yes, my relationships are very important, I have a standing date night, I know and speak my lovers love language, I spend time with my family members daily, I love and show respect for each of my relationships…
No, I like to fly by the seat of my pants and be spontaneous, I prefer to text rather than hear the voice, I breeze in and out with out a kiss or speaking to anyone in the house, there are days when I do not speak to my children, I’m busy….
Home/Simple Chores:
Yes, everyone in our home does chores and we share the load together and we have a process and schedule for doing the household chores, we have routine maintenance which we do as a family and we all love and respect our home and appreciate the things which we have and donate those items which we not longer need or use. Everyone participates in keeping our home healthy, clean, happy and growing.
No, we do not have any set schedule to do anything. When there are no more clean dishes, the dishes get washed. We do the laundry when there are no more clean clothes. When we have time and we want to we may clean to house. We rarely give away anything, because we might need it someday. No one is really responsible for any one thing.
Rest/Health/Wellness:
Yes, we all take these three as very important from the baby to grandpa….in our home the beds are made and sheets changed weekly. The bedroom is for love making and sleep. These rooms are places of peacefulness, quiet, coolness and calm. We do not do work or watch TV in our bedrooms. We take our health and wellness seriously and plan our meals, exercise and eat healthy whole organic foods which we take great care to prepare and serve beautifully and eat in a lovely environment free from the noise and distraction of the constant negativity of the media and talk together as a family.
No, we roll into and out of bed everyday. We usually watch TV until we fall asleep. We do not place limits on our children in their rooms as to how late they can stay up, we think they can judge that for themselves. Yes, there are days when we catch up on emails while in bed and when we first get up, there might be something important I need to get to. We eat mostly in the car on the run or we eat out, we are very busy people and the kids have full calendars. When we are home we always have the TV on so we know what’s going on in the world.
Do you see how these two lifestyles are vastly different and garner very different results? These are not extremes. In one scenario, the adults have see the results and folly of the other and prefer the positive healthy way of living. In the other scenario, living by the seat of your pants approach, these people haven’t hit rock bottom yet and had their wake up call to change.
Where are you?