Can I Really CHANGE?

Here is a paradox:

One of the most difficult things for people to do is to CHANGE; the one thing God WANTS to assist us to do is CHANGE.

So why don’t we change? It is a painful process. And we will go out of our way to avoid pain.

There was a hound on a porch that would howl every so often.

I asked his master “Why does your hound howl?”

The master replied “He is sittin’ on a nail.”

“Why doesn’t he move?” I asked.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad!”

Our lives, our relationships, many things in life are irritants. We often know how to CHANGE them. But they don’t hurt enough to make the necessary CHANGES to fix the problems.

In the Gospels, we have many examples of people with problems who saw that Jesus was the answer to their difficulty. They generally have to do with serious illness. So we often believe that our difficulties must be serious to merit God’s assistance. We can handle the small stuff.

But like the hound in the story above, it doesn’t hurt bad enough to get us to CHANGE. We don’t bother to handle the small stuff.

We have all heard “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” This statement and many like it shape our lives. We have them as core beliefs.

So what is necessary to begin to CHANGE is to begin to change these core beliefs. “We become what we think about.” so to CHANGE what we do, we have to CHANGE what we think about. If we continue to dwell on the errors of the past, it will continue to rule our future.

We can, however, shape our future. We have all planned vacations. Vacations are a change to our norm. We spend time to review the information available to us about our destination to ensure we get the most out of our trip. We determine what we want to see, the priorities we have for various activities that are available to us. Once we have departed and started to execute the plan, we continue to have a choice of what to do. Each decision will impact future events as we use the available time.

That is how we can CHANGE. Establish a new plan. Then take the simple steps necessary to achieve this CHANGE.

" 'DO' or 'NO DO' - there is no 'TRY' " - Yoda

This quote of Yoda from the Star Wars series says so much to us. "TRY" is probably one of the most overused and abused words in the English language.

Why do we "TRY" to do anything? We will either do it or we won't. We are just putting off the decision to another time - more "procrastination" - which is as bad as "TRY."

Putting off decisions - what does this give us? What sense of accomplishment do we obtain? Are we waiting for more information? Or are we just taught to be cautious? "Be careful" are words we say all too often to our young ones - when what we should really say is "Go for it!!"

No wonder we have no idea what Freedom really is. We are so bound up in being careful that we cannot express ourselves. On the other hand, we have so much safety equipment, we feel we can be careless. Do you see the paradox here?

The same is true in our business life - we want the security of "benefits" so we give up our freedom to work our own hours as we choose. We are forced to experience life on the 52 weekends, 10 holidays and 2 to 3 weeks vacation our employer so graciously provides for us. Most people earn more than two times what they are paid for their company. The rest goes to this "security" that they give us. Is it worth the price?

And then you throw in the fact that good employees receive the fewest benefits from the government with respect to the tax code.

The sad but true part is there are numerous opportunities out there to find true freedom – to “Live Beyond Freedom” – to be creative and earn what we are truly worth, and then get to choose for ourselves how we want the money earned to be used. Interestingly enough, we are also encouraged by the same government to do this with numerous tax advantages that allow us to use pre-tax dollars for our business activities.

So “DO” and reap the reward or “NOT DO” and continue on the current course that leads to 95% of the American public to be dead or dead broke at age 65. “TRY” will probably get you the same result as “NOT DO.”

Jeff Ferguson
www.thelbfgroup.com