 Dear Why Team member, Why does our life design sometimes do more harm than good? Are you too busy to ask why? Do you have too little margin to find the time to ask why? The faster we move, the more blurry things can become. Our best efforts to be effective can often lead us to harm the very people we love and seek to serve the most. Our pursuit to "DO more" can keep us from "BEING more". It is so easy to become more of a human-doing than a human-being. My personal journey has revealed time and again that... ...the best thing I can do, at times, is to slow down enough to ask the question "why?" Each of us have only so much capacity, our fuel tanks can hold only so much fuel and while I am all about testing the limits, I have also found it's unwise to run to long on fumes. Life has a way of throwing us curve balls, and when it does, if our tanks are running on empty, we may not have the fuel necessary to be our best selves in the heat of the moment. A fellow why team member and good friend of mine shared a recent awakening he had when he asked himself why he gets so frustrated, and sometimes a little unkind to his children, when they leave their dirty clothes inside out. Why? Because their behavior adds additional work for him when pulling their clothes from the dryer, having to turn them right side out before he can fold them, therefore causing him to be less efficient and effective than he wants to be. Hmm. Haven't we all been here? Albeit with our own unique examples?
Putting personal systems and rules above the very people those systems and rules are developed to support?! To catch myself in these moments, I'll simply ask what is more important, my rules or the person those rules have been built to serve. While the rules we establish are important, they are never more important than the people we are seeking to serve with them. You are the designer of your life, you largely make the rules that fuel your effectiveness, you can adjust those rules, you can change them - at least those you have put above the people you love. Children, especially, will not one day grow up to be somebody, they are somebody now. Lou Cassara, author of "From Selling to Serving", said it well when he said, "Who you are being is far more important than what you are doing." The quality of our doing is largely born from the quality of our being. When you find yourself getting upset, for any reason, ask "Why?". And does your why align with your best version of yourself? Next time you're doing laundry, and find a shirt inside out, smile and turn it right side out while feeling the love you have for the person that wears that shirt, above and beyond any rule that may inconvenience you. There is always another time to review house rules to be more effective as a family, but know our identity is not found in our doing, but rather in our being. Be more patient and loving toward yourself and no doubt you will be more patient and loving toward others. Love yourself more, for who you are being, not just for what you are doing, and you will be more of what the world needs now. Make it a great week, Steve Luckenbach ** If you arrived here via Facebook or Twitter and would like to sign up to receive each blog post as it is announced, along with future news about upcoming books and other projects I am working on please sign up here. Comments are closed.
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