No. 12 | A few posts back I was warning against the negative and self-submarining habit of “If only…”.
An excerpt: One thought habit that has been very helpful and has become a trusted standby for me is to propose to myself a “what if” question. Even better, a series of such questions. A more complete description, “What if, instead of forever wallowing in ‘if only’, I…insert new habit here?”
I cannot recall with exact certainty when I first took up my “What if…?” habit. I very much recall the experience that spurred my giving the thought question as well as the self-advised follow-up actions the question worked to unearth an honest test run.
Little miracle number one and I were quite involved with Boy Scouting. On a gray, chilly morning as we were breaking camp, I was standing near the community camp kitchen drinking my first cup of morning coffee. I looked out to see one young scout regularly thumping another with a sleeping pad. The scene really bothered me. To describe it rightly, nobody was yet getting hurt physically. But that sort of thing does not sit well with me. Everything in me wanted to intervene. I learned through my experiences in scouting that sometimes we need to let things go. Let them play out. Let people learn lessons that reality will teach. Lessons learned in the real world of choice and consequence consistently bear more fruit than lessons we think we give with our interventions. I am still striving to embody this better than I do.
As I was considering just how I was going to intervene and resolve the situation, one of the other adult leaders said, “This is going to be alright.” For the sake of the story here, I will call the boys Billy and Johnny. At this point, Johnny is, every so often, whacking Billy with this rolled-up sleeping pad. It is easily observable that Billy does not like this.
Now I am the new guy among these other adult leaders. I have questions, but I just listen. Someone else raises my question for me, “You think it will be ok? It looks to me like this is escalating. Billy is going to come back at Johnny at any moment.”
The first speaker answers, “What you may not know is that Billy joined the wrestling team at school. Johnny may not know this either. I happen to know that Billy has recently worked up to doing at least one hundred push-ups a day on the advice of his coach. When Billy decides he has had enough, it will be resolved.”
It did resolve. Billy resolved it in short order. I think both boys did, in fact, learn something that day. Nobody was hurt at all. All the day’s planned activities took place without any delays, and everyone participated.
And for me, this was the day and experience that gave birth to my powerful little “What if…” habit.
A few days prior, I had feared I might have pulled a muscle or similar while lifting my canoe to place it atop the roof rack of my old Trooper. Things like that occur in a flash. It felt as if something popped. Afterward, there was no serious pain. Was it my imagination? In my concern as I was poking and prodding myself to see if anything hurt, I thought, “It should be easier for me to lift and place my little boat on this rack.”
There is more to this story, and I should share at some point my whole “eat better, care for myself better, feel better” story. For now, I will go back to this camp-breaking morning’s lesson for me.
As I drank my coffee, probably by now my second or final cup; I watched this scene unfold. As a side note, a real takeaway of the day for me was that did need to let others learn their own lessons. If someone is going to get really hurt, that is one thing. But if it is small stuff, let reality teach the small stuff.
However, the most important lesson for me came when for some reason unknown to me, I almost audibly heard myself ask myself, “What if YOU did one hundred push-ups a day? What would happen if you did that? What would the end results be?” As the questions rolled across my mind, I thought, “I bet it would seriously improve my canoe car-topping.”
I have not done one hundred push-ups a day every day since that one. I have though done a lot of push-ups on most days. Discipline begets discipline. Other calisthenics very quickly became a part of my daily habit, and I cannot recommend the habit highly enough to any and all.
When “If only…” shoots its fiery darts at you, volley back, “What if…?” Let the question work its compass-like magic and act.