Little Johnny watches his friends bounce back and forth, up and down on the teeter totter. It looks like fun. So after his friends leave, he tries it. He sits on the seat and jumps, only it’s not going like he saw with his friends. Johnny jumps, grunts and, struggles, and even throws a nice juicy tantrum. But none of this makes the teeter totter work. Little Johnny doesn’t know what to fix or what to change to make this thing work.
Our Story
Often times that’s our story too, except it’s within our life and it’s a lot more complicated than a teeter totter. Our experience is often like this:
We would like our life to be free of trouble. But trouble keeps creeping in. We have due dates at work. We have bills to pay which creates pressure. The economy affects us. We don’t always get along with our spouse. We have periodic medical and health issues. We have car trouble. And our kids are doing the wrong things again. And we’d like to be rid of all this trouble and have life just go easy for a while.
At the same time, we work very hard to navigate through the complex relationships we have. We are making sure that people will generally like us, or at least we won’t be rejected by anyone. We might also work to stay safe by not calling attention to ourself. So, we’re trying very hard to look good, or to make people laugh, or to hide out so no one will notice, among other things.
All this tires us out, and we just wish life would be simpler – without all this trouble. So, we try to fix the problems. We try to control everything in our life. We try to manipulate people. And we cry out, “God, please fix my circumstances!”
Root Problem
The truth is that our circumstances are the symptom, not the problem. The person in the mirror is the problem.
Ever notice that certain problems keep coming back. I’ve had this. I had repeated unresolvable conflict at work. I had conflict in my first job. So, when I switched jobs, I thought that it would be over with. But then I had conflict in my second job. And it occurred in my third job. I kept wondering, “Why does this keep happening?” I kept praying that God would fix those people. In truth, I was a big part of the problem.
We either cause our circumstances or we make the environment in our life more hospitable for our circumstances to occur.
Solution
The solution is to work on ourselves.
Now, I don’t like to view people as a problem (not myself – not anyone). You’re not a problem. You’re a fully realized human being. You already have a lot going for you. And still, if you want to see change in your life, work first on yourself.
If you invest in yourself, work on character qualities, change the way you think and react, and change the way you show up, your circumstances will follow.
At Simply Great Lives, we provide space in our seminars for people to work on themselves because we know that without this, people (even already highly successful people) won’t become and do what they really want.
