07 November 2010

Limited Trust

This morning I had a long but very creative conversation with my wife.

We talked about responsibilities for our actions and learning from mistakes or I would rather say failures. This is what we fear most to do, not talking about but making one and if it happens many would be willing to 'kill' to hide it or blame some else to escape responsibility. 
We are told that making mistakes is wrong, bad and it never ever should take place and also we were punished for making them. For such reasons and pressure most will never admit one. Fear, is our the biggest enemy.

Failure, like few wise people say is part of learning and success, so unavoidable. Nowadays, you can find great variety of books and lecturers related to positive thinking, law of attraction, taking responsibility of life in own hands and so on. And indeed, one can read and listen and read and never change; never find the right words which get to the point of once's mind to trigger understanding that for all our failures only we are responsible. This is not someone or something else, this is us who make mistakes and we fail. If we get to this point that we only are responsible for our failures, than it opens the door for us to learning from them. But how to get there?

How to understand that Mr. Trouble who provided wrong solution is OUR fault? How it is possible that Mr. Employee showed his incompetence is OUR failure? It sounds ridiculous, isn't it? But closer examination of all our thoughts, actions and expectations prove this is true. 
If we gave correct and clear information Mr. Trouble could deliver what we wanted and Mr. Employee if we put enough effort to train him properly would do the good job. This can go on and on.

Coming back to the conversation with my wife. While we were discussing those she said: This is similar to when you drive a car, at some point you get to the road crossing and you have green light but a the same time you spotted a lorry closing a bit too fast from the right side. So instead of speeding through you slow down and ... the lorry whizzed inches in front of your bumper. It was the case of a second you have avoided a serious crash just by being reasonable and using limited trust to other road users. The other driver could be drunk or tired or not paying enough attention but it is our responsibility to be alerted and have limited trust, just take a bit care of our own safety. At least, this is us who drove our car.

This is the same in every day situation because life has its own roads full of drunk or distracted drivers and we are driving on those roads. This is why a dose of limited trust can help save us from getting unnecessary bruises or even avoid serious damages.
Of course, knowing what we want (having goals, dreams), being focused and working towards their achievement as well as determination, perseverance, believe and trust in that we can are all undeniable for success. However, I would like to stress again the need for limited trust to 'other drivers'. Many disappointments and frustrations could be omitted by using this.

For me, this nice comparison let me realized my failures which I didn't see that way. Now, I can take another look at them, analyze, draw conclusions, learn and move on.

I would like to recommend here a great book by fantastic personality John Bird who can be an inspiration to all: 
'How to Change Your Life in 7 Steps'

 

1 comment:

  1. Wow! Limited trust is a good idea to go throughout our life because we meet different people. Some of them are very very different ;)))

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