Having a clear mind and heart is essential when
making decisions about your future and those you love. There are many things to consider and
many unknowns. You probably don’t have a crystal ball to consult and you
probably do have an outcome that you desire.
Do you know the right questions to ask yourself? How
are you going to determine those? After getting some answers, what do you
chose?
What Should I Do?
With
so many people’s lives in the mix it’s sometimes hard to know where to turn and
how to evaluate advice. Sometimes we are pressured by time and money issues, or
our emotions are strong and cloud our thinking.
I’m reminded of a story I read as a child about a
man, his son, and a donkey. The three were going to go on a journey to a nearby
town. They set off with the man leading the donkey by a rope and the son
walking along beside him.
It wasn’t long and they came upon some people who
criticized the man for making his son walk-what a terrible thing when there was
a donkey he could ride. The man put his son up on the donkey and they
continued. Not far down the road they came upon another group of travelers who
scolded the boy for making his father walk-how disrespectful - and they changed
places.
Just as they approached a bridge going over a river
a passerby pointed out that the donkey looked so tired and they should give him
a rest and carry him over the bridge. After some effort and second thoughts
about the idea, the man and the boy succeeded in getting the donkey up on they
shoulders and proceeded to cross the bridge. As luck would have it the man and
the boy lost their balance and the donkey tumbled off their shoulders into the
water below.
Listening to the values of others, over your own,
can have a disastrous outcome. You could be left to deal with a resulting
situation that could have been avoided.
Deciding What You Want
There are lots of “shoulds” in life that can cloud
our access to what we truly want. There are parents’ past voices, teachers’
advice, professionals’/experts’ opinions, friends’ and co-workers’ experiences,
and our own fears and worries in the mix.
As the man, the boy and the donkey found out, other people along the way
had differing points of view, and making others happy resulted in a disaster.
Have you let yourself be influenced by another point
of view when you knew your heart and your values were in conflict with it? If you stopped trusting yourself
because someone else thought you should take a particular course of action,
reconsider those choices from your heart.. This is your life, other points of
view have a place in decision-making, but you get the final vote on what is
best for you
Take the action you can live with when you get to
the end of your journey. Sometimes it’s hard to go against a tide of opinion.
But you and your loved ones will be living with the consequences no matter what
you do. You will live better with things that you chose even if they don’t turn
out as well as you had hoped. Sometimes we can’t see the wisdom of something
until later - hindsight is always 20/20.
Living and Trusting Your Decisions
Most of us get blown off course many times in our
life. Life has challenges and conflict with, or with out divorce. We can count on being put into new
scenarios that we didn’t script. The thing we have going for us is: we can make
our own choices and take actions that align with our hearts and values.
No one but us can find the answers to our life’s challenges. Our hearts contain the road map
that we can follow. But we must still ourselves long enough to hear what is
there and trust the guidance. To
go against our own hearts and values because others think we should will not
turn out well.. as it didn’t for the man, the boy and the donkey.
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