WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO DO?

It's been several months since I've posted on this blog.  It's been a combination of being wound up on other projects and not making this blog a time priority.  It's a good situation to remind myself of the value of consistency.

Consistency is the truest measure of performance.  Anyone can have a good game, a good day, a good week, a good month or a good year.  But people who perform at the highest levels day in, day out set the bar for us amateurs.  I can stand at the free throw line on a basketball court and sink a free throw three times out of ten tries.  But Lebron James can make 9 out of 10 everyday of the year and sink 3-pointers with two guys guarding him.  That's why he makes the "big bucks" and I don't.  He's consistent.

I have the skill to manage a huge project, but I don't floss my teeth every night like I should.  I can deliver a speech in front of a 1,000 people but I can't eat a consistant diet or exercise everyday.    Whatever result you are looking for in your life, it comes down to consistent action.  Want to be at the highest level in your field?  Want to be healthy and happy?

It comes down to one question.  "What are you willing to do to get whatever you want?"

THE BUTTERFLY

Many years ago, I read a story about a man who was watching a butterfly break out of its cocoon.  The man could see the butterfly struggling to break through the wall of the cocoon and decided to give it some help. He broke off the leaf that held the cocoon and took it into the house.  With an Exacto knife and a small tweezers, he carefully cut open the wall of the cocoon.   The butterfly worked it's way out through the opening and plopped out onto the man's kitchen table.   He carefully moved the butterfly on to a sheet of paper and took it outside so it could fly away.

But after a few minutes, the butterfly stopped moving.  Unable to spread it's wings, it lay motionless as the man watched in bewilderment.

Apparently, the butterfly needs the struggle of breaking through the cocoon to pump blood into it's wings.  Without that struggle, it cannot gain the strength to fly.  Without the ability to fly, it cannot survive.  Though the man had a noble intention by trying to help the butterfly through it's struggle, he deprived the butterfly from the essential process it needed to grow and mature and ultimately survive.

Though we try to avoid struggle, it is absolutely necessary for our growth and maturity as people.   When I think about the times I tried to rescue my children from pain and discomfort, I was actually doing them a disservice by not allowing them to experience the struggle that would help them to grow up.

Like the butterfly, we are built to struggle and need that experience to fully grow into our life.  

STEER CLEAR OF RUMINATORS

One new vocabulary word I've picked up over the last few years is the word ruminate.  If you're not familiar with this word, it means "to think about things very deeply."  But in the world of psychology, it generally means to obsess over things repeatedly, especially negative things.  While this is a classic symptom of depression, many people ruminate over the daily events of their lives.

You might work or live with someone who ruminates.  It's easy to tell because they complain and obsess constantly.  Ruminators suck the energy out of everything and everyone.  They are exhausting to be around because no matter how positive and upbeat you want to be, a ruminator will find something wrong with it.

You: "Looks like a beautiful day today"
Them: "Yeah, but it's supposed to rain later."

You: "You look great today."
Them: "But I feel like shit."

You: "Happy Birthday!"
Them: "What's there to be happy about? I'm just getting older!"

I think you get the picture.  A person is very much like a plant.  A plant needs a good seed, healthy soil, sunlight and water to grow to it's full potential.  Our ability to grow is closely connected to our environment so we have to take care to create the best environment for our growth.

But the most important reason to steer clear of "ruminators" is that whatever you put energy toward will expand.  It's the reason why ruminators have such a negative life.  The reality is that you become whatever you think.

OUTSIDE THE COMFORT ZONE

When I was in my early 20's, I read a newspaper article about a young man who was killed when a tire he was inflating exploded.  I'm sure there were circumstances that I didn't know about (defect in the tire or just plain over-inflation), but all I could remember was the guy was killed.  Since then, I've had a phobia about inflating tires, any kind of tire, even bicycle tires.  If my tires are low, I'll go to a tire shop and have someone else do it, even if I have to pay them.  I've tried to do it myself, but as soon as I start hearing the air rushing in, all I can imagine is the tire exploding and concussion of the blast hurting or killing me.

I got a mountain bike recently but the tires were low.  My son Caine, is a bicycle mechanic in Portland and sent me a portable pump.  But I still planned to take the bike down to a bike shop so they could inflate the tires.  When I told Caine I wasn't going to use the pump, he could sense my fear and told me, "Dad, the tire manufacturers test the bursting point of a tire and the "recommended tire pressure" is less than half of that. There's no need to be afraid."

There's a part of our brain that creates fear in us.  It's put there for our protection to make sure we survive.  But our brain can't analyze whether the fear we have is real or imagined, we have to decide that ourselves.  Most of the fears we have in our minds are imagined because they're based on long-shot, worse case scenarios.  If we want to grow in our lives, we have to come out of our comfort zone and fight through "imagined fears" like inflating tires.

All of our growth comes outside our comfort zone.

LOVING THE RAIN

From my window, I can watch the rain coming down in buckets.  Its been raining in Hilo the last couple of days, which is what people expect out of Hilo.  The rain is the main reason why things are so green, real estate is so cheap and most tourists are just passing through on their way to see the volcano.

When I told people I was moving to Hilo, most of them asked me why I wanted to move to someplace that rained so much.  They either didn't know or forgot that I lived most of my life in Portland, Oregon where rain and cold go together like peanut butter and jelly.  

The typical Portland winter could bring 10-12 weeks of constant rain and overcast, which means you could go months without seeing the sun.  There's actually a condition call "Seasonal Affective Disorder" where lack of sun brings deep depression as well as massive deficiency in vitamin D.   With the effects of global warming, now it rains right on through the summer as well.  With that perspective, Hilo looks like Palm Springs to me.

I've come to realize now that those years in Portland were really getting me ready to live in Hilo.  Like so many things in life, we are constantly being prepared for what is ahead.  Writing for the newspaper in high school prepared me to enjoy the writing I do today.  Sitting next to my grandmother while she tended to the plants gave me an appreciation for gardening.  Losing my wife at a relatively early age prepared me to treasure the relationships that are so precious to me now.

So many of us complain about the "rain" in our lives, but we have no idea what the Universe is preparing us for.   Our struggles turn into important lessons, our disappointments turn into keys for our future success and our failures turn into the motivation to achieve our greatest triumphs.

In the time it took me to write these few paragraphs, the sky opened up and I can see the sun shining brilliantly.  But I needed those two days of rain to really love this very moment.

SUNRISE OR SUNSET?

I was showing my sister this picture that I took at our family reunion on Moloka'i two years ago.   She looked at the picture and commented, "Wow, that is a beautiful sunset."

I reminded her that we were on the east end of the island, which meant that this was actually a sunrise and not a sunset.   That sparked a conversation about how difficult it is to tell the difference between sunrise and sunset with just a quick glance.  You actually have to watch it for a few minutes to tell which way the sun is going.

Life is a lot like that too.   Sometimes we don't really know if the sun is setting or rising in our lives because it totally depends on the perspective we choose.  When we lose our desire to be creative, the energy to physically move around and the self-esteem to see ourselves as growing and expanding, we definitely see the sun going down on our lives.   People who always choose to see their lives as the "sunrise" don't pay attention to how old they are, don't feel limited by their past mistakes and see the future as a great opportunity and not something to do while you're waiting to die.

Look at the picture again.  It's a sunrise.   And it happens every day.

BECOMING YOUR PROBLEMS

I was talking to a friend the other day about some problems she was having in several different areas of her life.   They were important issues that needed to have time and attention, but as the conversation went on, it became apparent that she was hitting "overwhelm" mode.  The more we discussed things, the more the situation sounded dire and depressing.   She was "becoming her problem."

When problems and adversity seep into our lives, we often "internalize" the problem and see ourselves as the main root of our difficulties.  We get locked into this sense helplessness because our mind automatically runs "worse case scenarios" through our consciousness.  Einstein made reference to this when he said, "You can't solve a problem with the same mentality that created it."

Skilled problem solvers always see their problems as "separate" from themselves.  They don't allow situations or circumstances to affect their self-esteem, confidence or resourcefulness.  That's why they seem to resolve things without paying the huge emotional toll (or drama) that comes when we beat ourselves up for the predicaments we find ourselves in.

Our nature as humans is to be loving, wise, caring, interactive and intelligent.  If we get sucked into believing our lives are just a series of ongoing problems, we don't give ourselves the chance to see our real talents, skills and passion.