_________________________________________________________________________________________________
What is Hard? What is Smart!
I have, in my own life experience, struggled with some of the challenges of life. As a young person, I far too often took the hard road, became frustrated, was overwhelmed and got discouraged. Discouragement leads to quitting, not giving your best and not seeking to overcome and win. This experience, I am confident, you might agree, is not Smart!
The link below showed up today in my inbox. It is not a new story, you may have seen it before…
______________________________________________________________________________
Now don’t cheat, watch the short video!!
______________________________________________________________________________
I can recall during my early years in law enforcement that I struggled taking promotion tests. My mindset was, hey, I am a graduate of a prestigious university. I am smart! I am socially and culturally aware…not that those things matter! But inevitably I would “over-think” test questions. And, being smart, think there was a trick in the question, a hidden secret, a nuanced “right” answer…and ultimately select the wrong answer.
I would see other people that I thought were not as “smart” as I was, passing those same tests and moving forward in their careers. Evidently they were smarter than I comprehended in those days, right!
Until one day I asked the right question, listened for a change, and heard what I needed to hear. Don’t overthink this stuff!
Yes, some simply smart people will tell you, don’t over complicate things. Simple is smart, too. And, in another venue, my Special Operations military friends often said “slow is fast!” Another way of looking at things. And another way of overcoming and succeeding.
What is thought to be hard, has already in your actions, begun to defeat you Something that you perceive to be far, that distance you must travel…has already begun to defeat you. This is before you even begin to shorten the distance by taking that first step. And in the first step, the distance has shrunk by one, and then one again, and another. Before you know it, you are on the way, and moving towards achievement.
Going back to my law enforcement analogy, there was an old saying or concept by “old timer” cops. Simply put…”talk them to jail.”
The idea being why fight or shoot if you don’t have to. Use your mind and mouth to convince the bad actor to put the handcuffs on themselves, walk themselves to the police car, and peacefully go to jail. A bit oversimplified, and actually a bit unrealistic virtually all the time. But there were those otherworldly moments when…it actually did work.
Hard, but simple. Hardest if you never try. Simplest if you are patient, thoughtful, considerate…and it doesn’t hurt when it is not a hot summer day and you got the right guy!
But really, wouldn’t life be much easier, wouldn’t your life work much better if we used our brains better? Logic and reason, viewing things from a different perspective. Heck, I might have made Captain before I bolted for the seeming greener pastures of the world of international terrorism. As if!
Anyway, as a fairly mature father later in life that is how I tried to raise my daughter. Smarter really is better. Simple really is smarter.
My daughter has embraced the slow is the fastest concept. When I ask her to clean her room, she goes into full slow mode. Still waiting for the finish!