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.
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