Other people may be there to help us, teach us, guide us along our path, but the lesson to be learned is always ours.
– Anonymous
An arrow is a universal symbol that typically guides us towards a preferred direction. It would appear that this was not the case with this footpath sign I saw this morning. For the life of me I cannot imagine how a car tyre (or even the car itself) could possibly be construed as either yummy, delicious or even slightly nutritious.
I noticed that the cafe the arrow should have been pointed towards was full so it would appear people ignored the mis-direction or they may not even have noticed it.
Guides are just that … guides. We ultimately chose the direction we will go depending on a whole lot of things – information we know or may have gathered, our experiences, and our desires. The trick is to know what to pay attention to and what to ignore. We make decisions all the time and we have to live with the consequences.
A number of years ago when things were particularly tough for me I had to make some major decisions about what to do next. At the time I was studying at university but juggling this with the new demands being placed on me were increasingly becoming too much. I had to simplify my life so I could concentrate on the much bigger issue at hand – how I was going to support my children and myself so we could get back on track with living the way we wanted to.
Overlooking Wellington from the lofty heights of the university library (a well kept secret – this library has the best views in town) I sat down with a piece of virgin white paper in front of me. No-one else was around and I felt like this was a big moment for me. I was going to make a decision. I wanted to have a clear head and I didn’t want anything or anyone to distract me.
I drew up three columns on the paper. I headed one column ‘P’ (plus), the other ‘M’ (minus) and the third one ‘I’ (interesting). I then proceeded to write down all the positive points of what I was planning to do, all the negatives, and all the interesting implications and possible outcomes. My arrow was going to be the column with the highest total score – a strongly positive score would tell me that I should go ahead and a strongly negative score would tell me to avoid going there. Well, in theory that is how it works.
In my case the ‘M’ column had by far the highest score and the ‘P’ had the lowest. The decision should have been easy – the scores were saying “don’t go there Marica” … only I had other plans. It is amazing what some quiet time, in a beautiful place, can do for one’s thought processes. Everything became clearer and I felt so much more in control. It was the ‘interesting’ column that drew my attention. It only had a few points on there but all of them excited me and I wanted to be excited.
I left the university having made a decision. The arrow said go one way, I decided to go another. Guess what? … I’ve never regretted that decision. I listened to my self. I knew what I wanted to do and why. My kids and I have reaped the rewards. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t get there alone but this was my journey and I was in control. PMI helped me to realise that. Thanks de Bono – this is such a simple yet very effective tool.
What did I learn from all this … going the ‘wrong’ way can be the ‘right’ way. It’s up to us to determine the direction of the arrow we will follow.
Manifesto
06. Every day you make choices.
07. Every day making no choice is a choice.
08. Every day choose to bring about change.
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2 Comments
thanks for sharing this. i can really relate to this. for years i lived my life based on other people’s expectations (and what i thought were other people’s expectations of me). doing the ‘right’ things haven’t always made me happy, it’s when i started to follow the ‘interesting’ stuff that i started to really discover who i am and found a deeper sense of joy and peace in my life. keep sharing you two, you’re an inspiration!
Thanks Hannah. I also spent far too many years doing the ‘right’ things only they weren’t my ‘right’ things they were other peoples. Learning to trust that we do know ourselves best takes time and courage.
Thanks for the encouragement.
xoM