Beyond the Mirror

 Beyond the Mirror

Sometimes we get stuck in our mirror...the self-reflection in a vacuum at arm's length.  When we're only looking that far in front of us, it's easy to lose context.  It's easy to get ourselves into our own version of a pity party.  Just in the last couple of weeks, we had a person in our circle who got remarried, another hired for a position, and had a friend change houses.  The point here is that, in each of those cases, the person had come to an unbearable, scorched-earth-only position where anything had to be better than their current reality.  The other side of that coin...the part they often didn't see "beyond the mirror" was that in each situation, they had people lining up to be in line to replace the thing they couldn't stand.  

In the marriage case, the person that the other person couldn't stand to be with was back in a relationship fairly quickly.  For friends who couldn't stand the person they'd made vows and life with after ten years in, in many cases people find another someone to share life with.  We can trick ourselves that the world is better just around the bend or that the grass is greener across the street.  As we've talked, it's often more true that the grass is greener where we water and cultivate it.  When we look beyond the victim mentality in our mirror and take ownership of our parts of the solution and systems for success...we stop blaming our troubles on our spouse.  That's probably the first step in moving forward. 

In the position example, we were hiring for two positions, and we had close to 200 fairly qualified people lining up for a job that the outgoing person couldn't stand.  Several of the candidates were very, very overqualified but had left their previous positions because they couldn't stand them.  News flash, chances are, they wouldn't be able to stand ours within a few months either.  The old "be the best ____ that you can be" rings true.  I think the most contented work folks I've been around have been the ones with enough passion and initiative to be competent professionals, but balanced with the "enough" attitude that they're not constantly onto bigger and better.  

Lastly, in the house/car/stuff upgrade categories...leaving behind an "awful" house to you is likely going to be the new dream home to someone else.  We have a family that we've done life beside for the past decade or so.  We both had kids about the same time, bought houses about the same time, and so forth.  In that decade, we've remodeled our home while adding a fort, playhouse, tree house, trampoline, etc in the backyard - mostly through repurposing construction cast-offs from around town.  Over the same decade, they're on their fourth trade-up house.  We were talking the other day about finances, and while they've upgraded their house...they've also drastically upgraded their mortgage along the way, leaving little margin for travel or other fun items.  

Across the board on these "mirror-level" issues where we lose context or miss the forest for the trees, it's often a level of contentedness that is the right answer and connected/shared expectations.  The remarried person is happy (again, for now), but lots of heartache on the way through.  A person who left our organization recently said, "Wow, I made a mistake; I wish I could come back."  The upgrader in houses and cars realized they'd only paid interest to the bank the way amortization is set up...while others have paid off their house and have the peace that comes with it.  The point is, when we're in mirror range, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture.  We have to zoom out sometimes to see just how good we have it.  

As we wrap up this week, before you make some drastic change...zoom out a little bit to get some context and appreciation for where your baseline is at right now.  Take stock of the alternative outcomes and unintended consequences when you view a major decision, not in a silo or vacuum, but when viewed across time, space, and impacts to your broader life situation.  Hopefully, you can use a combination of l% improvements to fine-tune your masterpiece statute instead of bringing the chainsaw or nuclear weapon option out of the arsenal straight away.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick out one bucket of life this week and come up with three small tweak changes that you'll implement in order to reduce your stress or anxiety...so that you stop thinking about the nuclear option.
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) in terms of committing as a family to making small change course corrections to live your best life.  

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Small tweaks are not negative...