On Tuesday, I listed many ways to learn to look past your filters. Many of us don’t want to do this, and with good reason: Simple, uncomplicated fear. Okay, maybe it’s not such a good reason after all 
When you’re going along and suddenly your you are brought face-to-face with what you believed to be impossible, there are a few ways to react. Generally one of three things happen:
- You are inspired and excited by this discovery.
- You pull back as far as possible, or
- You are completely unable to deal with it and it drives you crazy.
(Those of you who are Doctor Who fans will recognize those three results. It still fits )
When I get new awareness, I do my best to arrange that I am excited and inspired. Am I always? Not at first. Sometimes I can get downright bummed out that what I thought and hoped was the case turned out to be false. However, I keep working with it until I find inspiration. Why?
Greater awareness is a good thing. The clearer picture of reality you have, the better off you are.
Think about it. Let’s go back to the stocks professional-turned-property-manager from last week. She may be afraid to cope with the fact that she doesn’t have the people skills she needs. If she pulls back, it will eat her alive even as she refuses to acknowledge it. She’ll probably lose the job (or quit on bad terms) without understanding what went wrong. If she is unable to deal with it she’d probably just quit on the spot, or try to turn it back on everyone around her, which would get one fired. Not happy for anyone.
However, if she decides to see this as a priceless opportunity to expand her skills and make her that much more effective, she can learn what she needs much more easily. She can be much more open to challenges, to criticism, and to change. Over time, she will have mastered the skills she needs, at which point she will be in a much more powerful position to either continue with this job because she is happy there, or she can seek new challenges, new skills, and new horizons elsewhere.
The problem most of us have with being wrong.
I could very easily take the easy way out and point the finger at the school systems and blame it on them, but that would be like blaming your eyes for the allergy attack which causes them to itch. The schools are a product and reflection of society at large. We’ve become so obsessed with instant gratification that in the process we have become extremely unforgiving of mistakes. if we see someone make one slip-up, usually someone will chime in saying “Failure” in a chiding way. It’s not meant to be cruel, but it’s a symptom of the same obsession with being right.
That brings me back to a book I read waay back in Elementary School. It was Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days by Stephen Manes. It impressed me because the main character was in such dire pursuit of perfection that he realized that there was so very much more. When he ultimately failed in his quest for perfection, he received congratulations instead of ridicule. He’d made a noble effort and now was entitled, by virtue of his imperfection, to make all the mistakes and slip-ups he wanted.
Most of us think that we stand on a razor-thin line, and that if we make a mistake we fall off and into the Big Scary Abyss. When it comes to living life, it’s nowhere near that simple, nor that scary if you open your eyes and embrace it.
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