(Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay)
“A year from now, you will wish you had started today”.
(Karen Lamb)
Dictionary.com defines an anniversary as the yearly recurrence of the date of a past event and the celebration or commemoration of such a date.
The first Walk into the Future article was posted on this site on 6/18/2018. The true anniversary date for me is 4/14/2018—let me explain why I say this.
I sat on the beach at St. George Island (SGI) on 4/14/2018 with the idea of deciding which direction I wanted to pursue moving forward. The Walk into the Future concept was not on my radar but needed the beach atmosphere to help with a huge decision.
So, I sat on the beach on this prophetic day with my beach towel, cooler of beer, reggae, pen, and paper to figure this thing called life out (Prince reference).
I have used the concept of a pros/cons list in the past to help with major decisions and my goal on this day was to identify pro/con items to inform the decision I needed to make. Dr. Henry Cloud identifies successful people do not hang on to bad stuff for long in his book 9 Things you Simply Must do in Love and Life. The only way to label something as bad is to take a true look at it without emotion, hence the pros/cons list for me.
I finally admitted I spent too much time determining if I should stay in my old role. The interactions I had with students, employers, faculty, staff, and community members still appealed to me but there was always something daily to eliminate my joy. Turns out it was too much negative workplace energy. This is not a complaint just a stated fact from my perspective—negative energy can and will wear you down over time.
Fast forward to the list and the decision was obvious! There were 5 pros and 15 cons. I tried to manufacture some additional pros just to see if I could even this process out a bit, but this was the final tally. The 15 cons were present EVERY day and only 3 pros were daily items. I was amused when I saw the disparity of my two lists. I subconsciously knew this to be true but never wrote it out to examine more in-depth. Sadly, none of the cons listed were fixable—not one.
I laughed when I was able to view the list for the insight in front of me. So, on 4/14/2018 the Walk into the Future journey began after I made the decision it was time to move on from what I was doing. The work and making a difference daily were not the problem it was the negative energy—the opposite of the Irie mindset I seek in life. Dr. Cloud has another principle he calls Pull the Tooth. I decided to pull the tooth and Walk into the Future after I finished my beer and listened to a few more Bob Marley songs.
I decided to write this post after looking in my journal and coming across the page with my pros/cons list. Just happened to be 2 years to the date I wrote the items and wanted to share with my readers I just had an anniversary.
So, happy anniversary to the Walk into the Future blog. Here is to a few more years of writing, sharing adventures and making a difference in the world. Thanks for walking with me!
What tooth do YOU need to pull? How could the pros/cons list help with your decision?
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing”.
(Walt Disney)
Walk Into the Future 