Your assignment, force yourself to be objective and observe your interactions with others. I hope you found some error in your ways. I really was after having you discover that you are too fast to assume you are right and the others are wrong. Did you find that you are quickly judgmental and assume the worst and that your default position is that others are against you or trying to take advantage of you? Did you notice that there really isn’t a lot of diversity in your travels? Were you able to see how you are adding to some of the dysfunctionality in today’s society? No, then you didn’t look hard enough. Obviously, we have never met. The fact that you came back with a no, sure sounds like you are more a part of the problem than you are willing to admit. Are you one of the many people today that feel like you are more important than everyone else? Are you one of those people that has the take as much as you can get attitude? I need to use some song lyrics from the Jim Croce song, “Which Way are You Goin” here to make a point:

I know that I have to work on telling myself to slow down, to not react but to control my thoughts and actions and really understand what is happening. Just because someone tells you something doesn’t make it so. Even if it is true, maybe the rest of the story isn’t accurate.  I know that I am quick to assume things… so I try to catch myself before I get too far down the rabbit hole of whatever the issue is. My advice…Always stay humble and kind. Guess it’s a song lyric kind of day.

This Week’s Talk

Scrooge and the Spirit are near the end of their travels together. If you have seen almost any version of the movie, you know Scrooge is about to come to face-to-face with his own demise. He is going to be confronted with his own grave. All the pieces come together. It is going to be undeniable. Scrooge is about to come to the inevitable conclusion that the man that others were making fun of, the person who had his belongings stolen from his death bed, the man that nobody cared about… that was… me! Wouldn’t that be the worst, to see that your life had been so utterly wasted that you had no one to miss you at the end? Nobody grateful for the second chance you gave them. Nobody to recall the favor you did and never told.

I can’t recall if I ever talked about this earlier in the blog, but I have read and listened to a fair number of motivational and life talks about how any good that you did gets erased when you start telling people about it. You don’t have to tell your coworkers how you helped your neighbor with a project; you don’t have to tell them that you did some sort of community service; you don’t have to tell them that you bailed out a coworker who didn’t know how to do something. Ask yourself, truly, and most sincerely, why are you telling people? Oh, look at me what a big person I am.  I know that I have used these sayings earlier but since they fit:

• Work for a cause, not applause.
• I would rather do right, than be right.

This Week’s Assignment

The full quote to this week’s title goes: “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which if persevered, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”  We have already agreed that you are reading this blog and doing the weekly exercises because you are trying to alter the end which your course shall deliver.  Time to stop for a reality check. Answer some questions this week and do an exercise:

1. Have you done the exercises and felt that you were absolutely 100% sincere and true with the answers?
2. In answering the questions have you recognized that you are not the best person that you can be?
3. Do you see yourself and your past differently than you otherwise may have?
4. Can you specifically point to what you are doing differently than you did before?
5. Your exercise this week: Take something relatively significant that has transpired in your life since you have been following along with me and write out how the old you would have handled it and then contrast that to how the new you handled it. Are these radically different outcomes? I am not asking if the outcome was “better” for you. I am asking if your actions, and the resulting impact on those directly and indirectly involved was better for them, and for the greater good of society?

Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends. Unless you significantly alter your ways don’t expect significantly different outcomes. That doesn’t mean the changes have to be huge. It means that they have to be fundamentally different. There are not superior rewards for mediocre performance. Deceive yourself all you want that you are right, that you hold the moral high ground, that your beliefs are right. I will refer you back to the earlier Jim Croce lyrics.

See you next week…