“I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.”
– Robert E. Lee
Disclaimer: Control is an illusion, at best, a delusion in other cases. That said, Lee’s quote makes today’s point.
Since so little is in our control, our ability to focus on the things that are closest to controllable will ultimately decide how big of a difference we make.
There are three things we ultimately decide:
We decide when to speak and when to listen. Listening is the greatest gift we can offer, and we ought to offer it more readily. Not anticipating what we’ll say next, or dusting off the nifty little phrase we’ve offered others in similar times, but really listening, until the silence is almost uncomfortable, is a decision we get to make.
We decide how we’ll respond. Instincts and experience influence us, certainly, but if we respond poorly, it’s because at some point in the process, we decided to. When we’re not sure how to respond, no response is often the best path. When we have to respond, a pregnant pause, during which we weight the options, will typically help us to decide to respond productively.
We decide with whom we will invest our time. If all we decide to do is spend time with people that re-fill the tank, energize the pistons or somehow otherwise leave us better than we began, we’ll win. Big. And, when we decide to spend time with the fun-sucks, the glass-is-half-empty-and-the-water-is-murky types, we are deciding to be less than He made us to be. Notice the verbs here. INVEST time with people who make us better. SPEND time with people who drag us down.
If we can trust ourselves to make these three decisions, and make them well, others will trust us, and we can trust ourselves.
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