Take a cuppa coffee, tea, water, drink and enjoy the following Christmas story, though not related to Christmas but Life.
PRINCIPLE 4: DO SOMETHING
By Dr Henry Cloud
There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.
—MARSHALL MCLUHAN
WHY ARE you looking at me like that?” Gretchen asked. “Like what?” I asked. “Like I am supposed to do something about it,” she said.
It was one of those moments in which I wondered whether mind-reading truly was possible or she was just a lucky guesser. I really was thinking that she should do something. However, I was not trying to look as though I thought that. I was just listening to her. Actually I was trying to do nothing and let her think it out for herself. She was the kind of client who always wanted someone to tell her what to do. Then when she was told, she was as likely to resist the advice as to take it. I had learned this about her early in her counseling and had refused to play the game anymore. But I had to be honest.
“Well, now that you ask, that is what I was thinking,” I admitted, a little annoyed that I was so transparent.
“What do you think I should do?” she pressed.
“I did not say that I was thinking of what you should do,” I said. “I just agreed that I was thinking you ought to do something.”
“Do what?” she demanded.
“Something” I said.
“But what? How in the world could you be thinking I should do something when something was not even anything,” she said, somewhat contemptuously. “Something is something, not nothing.”
“That is a fair question,” I replied. “Let me explain. It is like what a friend of mine said to her seven-year-old son when he came to her and wanted her to fix the fact that he was bored. He was sitting around the house with no friends and did not like having nothing to do. So she told him, ‘Daniel, you are responsible for your own fun. So go find something to do that you enjoy.’
“That is kind of what I was thinking in this situation with your sister Jean,” I told Gretchen. (Jean wasn’t speaking to Gretchen because of something Gretchen had done.) “I was not thinking of what you should do. But like my friend with her son, I was thinking that if you don’t like the way things are, then it is up to you to do something. You are responsible for your own “fun,” and in this situation you are certainly not having any. So I thought you should do something about that. What you do is a different question.”
She shifted in her chair, and I continued.
“Your central problem is that whenever anything is wrong in your life—whether in a relationship like this one with Jean, or at work, or in your social life—you always think that the solution to making it better is going to come from the outside, not from you. The answer for you is the same as for that bored kid: fun is not a bird that is going to land on your head. But a better relationship with Jean is not going to show up at your door through her initiative. Fixing the next step in your career is not going to come in the mail, and neither is the man of your dreams. Yet you always expect that someone else is going to make the first move to create the solution. And if they do not, you stay stuck in the problem, resentful and wishing life were treating you better.”
I said I could sit there and think she should do something because I believe that is what people who succeed do. They do something instead of nothing.
“So when you think that I believe you should do something, you are right. But I was not thinking about what you were to do at all. I was just noticing that it is your move.
“But,” Gretchen protested, “she is the one who is bugged with me. I didn’t do anything to her. And if she has a problem with me, it is her responsibility to come to me. I didn’t cause this. It’s her problem.”
“True, she is bugged, and she should come to you,” I said. “But, as I have listened to you, you sound bugged too.”
“Yeah, but only because she is bugged with me,” Gretchen retorted. “That’s what bugs me. She is causing this. So it is her responsibility.”
“But when you are bugged, whose bugged is it?” I asked.
“What do you mean, whose bugged is it?” she asked, slightly exasperated.
“Just what I said. When you are bugged, when that feeling is inside of you, whose gut is that feeling lurking in at the moment? When you are bugged, whose bugged is that?” I persisted.
“Well, mine, I guess. But I didn’t cause it.”
“I did not ask who caused it. That only matters to a judge in a court if you decide to sue someone. If it rains, you did not cause that either, but it is your head that gets soaked if you don’t come in out of the rain or open an umbrella. So in a thunderstorm, are you going to just stand there, get wet, he miserable, and say, ‘God caused this, so it is his problem. He should make the first move’?”
It just did not occur to Gretchen that there might be something she could do to make the situation better, whether someone else does anything or not. Now if she had asked what I was thinking at that moment, I would have told her that I was wondering how many times I would have to have this conversation with her until she got it.
The repetitive conversation had to continue until she did get it, though. That is how important I believe this issue is. It is the fourth of the Nine Things successful people do in love and life. Principle Four says:
Déjà vu people ask themselves the question: What can I do to make this situation better?
Déjà vu people have a certain quality. In addition to listening to their heart’s desire, getting rid of negative stuff, and thinking of how the present will affect the future, they do something else. They tend to call on themselves as the first source to correct difficult situations. It does not matter whether they think they are to blame or not. Even if someone else is at fault, they will ask themselves, What can I do to make things better? The answer might be to call the other person and deal with the issue, or even to try to get him to take responsibility for his fault. Or the answer may be to call someone else for help. It could be a number of things. But whatever the answer, they make a move.
ARE YOU DRIVING YOUR LIFE, OR JUST ALONG FOR THE RIDE?
Proactivity
There are many different ways to look at this principle of making your move. For many years psychologists and philosophers have talked about related dynamics. For example, you may have heard some people referred to as proactive. That term usually refers to men and women who take positive, initiating steps in life as opposed to merely reacting to situations. They do not see themselves as victims of people and circumstances but as active participants who take steps to influence outcomes. If there is a problem in life, the world, or themselves, they do something to solve it. If they want a situation to be better, they see themselves as part of the solution, or at least as a catalyst to get it going.
Locus of Control
Another psychological perspective on this subject is called locus of control. That term refers to where a person perceives the “place” of control of himself lies. In other words, are you controlled from outside yourself, or inside? In Gretchen’s case, she had distressing feelings of being “bugged,” as we called it. Where was the locus of control of those feelings? Did all hope of her feeling better lie outside of herself or inside? Could she do nothing but sit and wait for relief to come through her sister calling and expressing a change of heart? Or would Gretchen have felt better if she took control and called her sister first?
Dependency
Still another psychological way to look at this principle is in terms of dependency. People who are overly dependent or approach life with an attitude of dependence tend to be less successful than their counterparts. This does not mean that to depend on others is a bad thing, for that is of itself a measure of emotional health. We need to be able to depend on other people because we all need each other. The problem comes when the dependency is passive and we look to others to do what we should be doing ourselves. To put it simply, I should not depend on another person to do my job.
Gretchen was taking a dependent stance. Should Jean have come to her? Of course. But Jean’s failure to take the initiative is Jean’s problem. Gretchen’s problem was that she would not do her own job of taking the initiative to get herself “unbugged.” She was not asking herself what she could do to resolve her own feelings and repair the breach in the relationship. She was depending on her sister to do it for her.
In light of the above ways of looking at the principle of this chapter, Gretchen was 1) not being proactive; 2) placing the control of herself outside of herself; and 3) depending on her sister to make the situation better. No wonder she was bugged!
With that pattern, I was not about to have a déjà vu experience with her. The situation did remind me, however, of one of my déjà vu friends. I saw him on a weekend, and while we were catching up I asked what his upcoming week looked like. He said, “It is going to be tough. I have some hard relationship issues I have to face into.”
Face into. . . now that is an interesting phrase, I thought. That is not a figure of speech; that is how he does life. He faces into it. It is active, not passive. Going toward life, not away from it. He leans toward it and propels himself into it.
It was another déjà vu experience for me. In none of his life did this friend wait for the solution to come and find him. He went and found the solution. He turned his face toward the situation and leaned into it. The mental picture I got was of track runners leaning over the start line waiting for the gun to fire. He was leaning toward the goal, eager to be let loose to make the situation better. Even when he was facing into something negative, he did not hold back or turn away. It is one thing to face into making vacation plans but quite another to face into tough relationship issues. He was being proactive, taking control of what he could control (himself), and not sitting back depending on someone else to make it all go away. He was going to make his move to do what he could do to make it better, regardless of the other people involved.
But, having confronted many people and urged them to take such active steps, I can tell you the common response: But what if they... . Whatever the issue, when you press non-déjà vu people to get active and do what they can do, they respond as if what they should do depends on what the other person does. Usually they say something like, But what if they don’t listen? Or, worse, They will never listen, as if they know the future they have never tried to effect.
I have never seen successful people stall out because of some feared, anticipated, or hypothetical outcome. They just do not think that way. They do what they can and then deal with that outcome just like they dealt with the issue in the first place. They get active and face into it all over again. Unless there is some good reason to believe that making a move is not wise, they do something. And by the way, waiting and not making a move is making a move if you are strategically waiting with good reason. Déjà vu people wait as well as act, not because of passivity or fear, but because they have a purpose.
Ownership and Responsibility
Psychologists are not the only ones who have noticed this dynamic. Philosophers have talked about it for centuries, as have theologians and spiritual guides. The philosophical category that it most often falls into is responsibility.
This is not the kind of responsibility that you think of in terms of “doing your duties.” We often think of being responsible as equivalent to taking out the trash or doing your taxes on time. That kind of responsible means that we do what we are supposed to do or perform the task that is placed before us.
Philosophical and psychological responsibility, or existential responsibility as it is called, means much more than that. It means that you and I are responsible not just for duties or jobs, but also for our entire existence. For example, you are not only responsible for taking out the trash, but also for being in the situation which includes taking out the trash, for how you feel about taking out the trash, and for choosing not to do all the other things you could be doing instead of taking it out. If you do not like taking out the trash, that is your problem, not the problem of whoever you think is making you do it. If you agree to perform the task, then it is your responsibility. Not your fault, maybe, but your responsibility.
To psychologists, philosophers, and theologians, who is at fault, is not the big issue. That is a legal question. What is an issue is being responsible in terms of ownership. To own my life means that it is mine and no other person’s. I can blame no one for what I do with it. I can blame them for what they do to me, but I cannot blame them for what I do with what they do to me. I am responsible for how I respond. Gretchen could blame her sister for being bugged with what Gretchen did or said. But she could not blame Jean for her own feelings of being bugged at the fact that her sister was bugged. She had to own the fact that her own feelings were her responsibility. Those feelings are in her life, in her skin, in her soul, not in her sister’s.
This owning of our lives is similar to owning other things. If you own your car, then you are responsible for it. If you own it, then you also control it. It is yours and yours only. You can paint it, you can put in a new engine, you can set it on fire, you can let it rust, or you can do whatever you want. It is yours. It is under your control.
When placed in Gretchen’s situation, people who own their lives would take control of their feelings and have a different experience than hers. How they respond is totally up to them. Some would get angry and go yell at Jean. Others would go out and get the rest of the family to join them against Jean, seeking revenge and causing dissension. Some would not be too affected by the experience and would feel pity for Jean because of her petty, limiting attitude.
• Finances
• Morality
• Spirituality
• Feelings
• Choices
• Attitudes
• Emotional Reactions
• Career
• Stress
• Addictions
• Guilt
YOUR MOVE IN ACTION
We live out our lives in various contexts, circumstance, and environments. At any given moment we find ourselves in many roles and relationships. While contexts change, the constant is who we are as people, our character, and how we express that character in the ways we live. The déjà vu person tends to be consistent in living out the get moving approach in whatever setting he finds himself. In many different contexts, he applies the three principles we looked at earlier—proactivity, internal locus of control, and nondependency. As a result, he practices ownership and responsibility, and therefore finds freedom.
What Making a Move Looks Like
When there is a breach in a relationship, as we saw in the case of Gretchen, the déjà vu person figures out what she can do to repair it. Instead of hoping that her sister will make the first move, a déjà vu Gretchen might take the following actions as appropriate:
• Ask, is there anything in my attitudes or actions that have contributed to this problem? What can I do to change those?
• Deal with my hurt and anger so my communication is more likely to help things rather than hurt.
• Ask, how can I communicate to the other person that I see the role I have played in our problem?
• Go and apologize.
• Go and confront.
• Go with an agenda of only listening and trying to understand how the other person has been hurt.
• Go to make amends.
• Get feedback from others on what ways I need to change, and find out how to do it.
With difficult people who are hurtful, angry, controlling, or have problems that affect you negatively, instead of letting your feelings be dependent on their moods or behaviors, do something:
• Go and make them aware of the problem.
• Ask if there is anything that you can do to make it better.
• Set limits on your exposure to the problem, and let them know that you will not be around them as long as it is occurring.
• Offer to help them get help.
• Bring in others to help; perform an intervention of some sort.
• Get away if they are abusive, and say you will not be around until they get help.
• Leave the room if they lose their temper, and tell them you will be glad to talk when they calm down.
• Take responsibility inside yourself for your reactions and the way that you allow them to get to you.
• Choose different and better reactions than the ways that you have responded previously.
• Get help to respond differently.
• Manage your expectations.
• Love them instead of expecting things from them.
• Stop enabling the problem in whatever way that you do.
• Do not depend on them for things they cannot give, such as approval, validation, or love.
• Enforce consequences.
With a dating life that is not working:
• Ask what you could do to meet new or different kinds of people.
• Ask the people who know you what there is about you that may be contributing to things not working out.
• If you are consistently attracting, or attracted to, a certain type of person, find out how you are causing that to happen.
• If meeting new people is a high goal of yours and you live in a place where that is not happening, take responsibility for that fact and do something that will help.
• Join a dating service.
• Deal with dependencies that are making you come across as desperate and needy.
• See a counselor about your issues that are contributing to the problem.
• Call former boyfriends or girlfriends and interview them about why it did not work and what they think you could change.
• Deal with dependencies that render you unable to say no to the wrong kinds of people.
• Get your long-term goals and values in line with the choices you are making; for example, if you want someone spiritual, don’t go after more shallow attributes and allow that to be okay.
• Let your friends and network know to think of you if they meet someone who might be compatible.
• Get out and get involved in activities that would expose you to new people who like what you like.
• Get over your fears of making the first move and asking someone out.
• Deal with your narrow categories that are ruling out potential dates by being too picky or having some type that you are looking for.
• Be open to going out with people that you would not consider as possibilities for long-term relationships, just to learn, grow, and have fun.
• Value friendship as much as romance.
• See if your values and your behavior match.
• Look at your dating history for patterns and issues that you need to resolve.
• Get honest about your physical appearance and take ownership for how that might be limiting your chances.
• Do the same thing with your personality or habits.
Compare the people who actively do the things in these examples with the ones who sit and complain, stuck in their misery and wishing that someone in particular or life in general were treating them differently. I have seen lives transformed when people begin to adopt the déjà vu person’s strategy of asking himself, What can I do to make this better?
Miracles have occurred. I recently attended the wedding of a woman who had complained to me a couple of years ago saying, “I wish I were married, but God just has not chosen that for me at this point in my life.”
She passively blamed her single status entirely on God. It never occurred to her that she might do something to help him. She was going nowhere that would enable her to meet new people. And she was burdened with so many relational issues and fears that even if the right guy did come along, her baggage would have prevented her from establishing a healthy relationship. And she was being very passive in her approach to making herself available.
I challenged this woman to take responsibility and be proactive. God would help her, but she needed to give him a little cooperation. I showed her many verses in the Bible making it clear that she was responsible for doing her part in this situation. I then challenged her to allow me to be her dating coach. She was hardheaded enough to take me up on it, and I introduced her to this get moving strategy. I told her that she had to do whatever I asked her to do, and of course I promised that it would not be illegal, immoral, or unethical. But if she expected her situation to change, she would have to take some active steps toward seeing things as her move.
The end of the story is that after going three years without a date before we implemented the get moving strategy, she established a significant relationship within six months after adopting it. She learned meaningful new relational skills from that relationship, and then shortly thereafter, met the man she married. Here is the exciting fact: she had been stagnant in her dating life for longer than it took to get moving and get married.
Just as the parable of the talents tells us, when you are burying yourself in the ground, not making your move, time will pass with absolutely nothing happening. She could have been stuck for twenty more years had she not gotten active. If you have been stuck in ways similar to this woman, her story should get you pumped to get active and make your move.
Recently I was talking to a friend, Tony Thomopoulos, who became president of ABC Television. The story of how his career got started is a great example of how to be an active participant in the events that shape one’s life.
He began in the proverbial mailroom. Think of that; right out of school and stuck in the basement of a big conglomerate. But his signing on as a mail clerk was an intentional move. He chose the mailroom over other more interesting positions because he knew that delivering mail throughout the company would put him in contact with every department. He would meet all the people in the company, know what they did, understand all the jobs, and then be better equipped to work his way up.
He then set a goal to be involved in a certain division by a certain date. He did not limit himself to some narrow description of a job, but agreed with himself to take any position available just to get in that division. To show how actively he was thinking about the “my move” strategy, he promised himself that if he had not made it into that division by his goal date he would leave the company and seek his career elsewhere. The heat was on for him to be active—pressure imposed by no one other than himself.
Through delivering the mail, he met employees in human resources and learned of one weird opportunity coming up in his targeted division. Someone was needed to take over a position for just two weeks while an employee was on vacation. The hours, 4:30 to 8:30 in the morning, were such that he could take the temporary position and still keep his regular job.
He knew nothing about the work he would be doing in the temporary position, but that didn’t stop him. He spent the weekend researching how he could do the best job possible in the short two weeks that he would be in that division. He arrived each morning at 3:30, an hour early, to prepare for his tasks. He also studied his boss, learning his needs and the things that would make his job easier. He found ways to benefit his boss instead of just trying to make himself look good. He truly served his boss. He added value.
After two weeks, the boss was so impressed with how prepared Tony was and the job he was doing that he hired him away from the mailroom. My friend was now in the division of the company that he desired. From there he was picked up by the upper management, and the ball started rolling that placed him in the president’s chair a handful of years later.
Luck? Providence? Certainly. As Tony said, “I can see that God was involved in every step.” But it was the same God who gave us the parable of the talents. That story tells us that God’s system requires a successful person to behave exactly as my friend Tony did.
Did you ever notice that to get to the Promised Land the Jewish people had to travel, fight wars, and cross a river? God provides for the birds of the air (Matthew 6:26), but have you ever seen one that did not leave the nest when it grew able to fly? Does God drop mosquitoes into the bird nest? Not hardly. He provides bugs for flying birds that go out and seek them.
Dig up your dream, but then ask yourself, What do I need to do now? How can I improve my lot? What do I need to do to get where I want to be? What skills do I need to develop? What fears do I need to get past? Who do I need to meet? How can I invest my talent? Those questions address steps toward proactive initiative, which God’s system demands of those who expect success. Then he asks us to ask him for his provision to open doors and make opportunities for that initiative to be exercised. We must pray, he says, and we must also act.
Think of the other guys down in the mailroom or even of others in positions at higher levels than Tony who would go home every night and say to their wives, “This company is a joke. They don’t see how much value I bring. There are just no opportunities to move up. Those stupid managers don’t know what they are doing.” Like my client who couldn’t find a date and blamed God for it, these complainers get stuck because they do not ask themselves, What do I need to do to make it better? They are not proactive, and do not realize that they could take control at least of themselves. Instead they passively wish that God, life, or management will do it all for them. That is not how you become president of a major company, or even get a date.
If it takes money to make money (a common excuse), then go raise the money. Do not sit there and say, “Gee, if we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs if we had some eggs:’ Do something. Make a move.
If the economy is lousy, do not wait for it to change. Gain a skill in a different field, look somewhere else, find another niche that is hot, enlarge your network or openness to other jobs, start your own service business, or something. Do not just sit around and wait.
Do not wait for your kids to show you respect; move towards them and find out where their heart is and where the breach has occurred between you and them. Find out why they act disrespectfully. Get into their world; do not require them to come over to yours. Yours may be really boring. Stand up to their disrespect with good boundaries and require different behavior. And if you don’t know how, get help.
Do not wait for your depression just to go away. Make an appointment for help. Learn about the illness—what causes it and what heals it. Join a group for support and treatment. Go to recovery, every day if you have to. See a doctor to determine whether you need medicine. Monitor your thinking. Read books. Develop your spiritual life. But remember, it is your depression (or anxiety, or fears, or addiction) and it is your move, at least to reach out for help.
If your child is going through a stage in which she is being difficult, don’t wait for the stage to end on its own. Engage the child where she is, while she is in that mood, and do what you can do to help her negotiate it. Do not expect from your child a level of maturity that she does not possess. You are the parent. Be the big person.
If you are lonely, do not wait for the phone to ring. Get out and find someone. And if you are afraid to do that, join a support group that helps people get unafraid. If that is too scary, see a counselor who helps people get strong enough to join a support group that helps people get unafraid.
As the great British actress Dame Flora Robson said, “Ask God’s blessing on your work. But don’t ask him to do it for you.
THE CREATED ORDER
I believe that God created the earth and all that is in it, and then he created us. He created us in his image, and we were designed to do basically the things that he does, just in much smaller measures. We are designed to dream up new things, be creative, work hard, rest, celebrate, know things, make choices, love each other, and do all sorts of things that He does. We are to act like him; that is what it means to be in his image or likeness.
He still does his part today, and we are to do ours. He provides the resources, and we are to use them. He places us in our own Eden, although it is now an imperfect one, and we are supposed to use the resources of our environment and our nature to reflect his image. We are to he loving and fruitful, as he is. We are to be productive, and like him, we are always to ask how we can contribute to making every situation better. Whatever relationship, job, family, city, or church we find ourselves in, we are to be working to redeem it, bringing light and healing into darkness and sickness.
God did not put us on the earth to fail to reflect his likeness. We turn our backs on his purpose for creating us if we do not reflect his nature. He did not intend for us to be misfits. He did not plan for us to sit back and allow life to follow the course of least resistance, becoming miserable, oppressive, unjust, full of mistakes, unloving, poverty stricken, ugly, lazy, negative, and evil without moving to do something about it. Such passivity is as far from reflecting the image of God as one could imagine. To the degree that we allow life just to happen and are not active forces to change whatever situation we find ourselves in, we are not living up to our true humanity by reflecting God’s nature. And that may be the reason you are stuck and not getting to where you want to be.
Labels: Dinners
