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Just the other day a friend of mine came up to me while I was in
the middle of rearranging my schedule to accommodate an unforeseen problem
that had just arisen and he asked, “How can you stay so calm and
relaxed? Don’t you ever get upset at anything? This would drive me
crazy!”
I smiled and shrugged
my shoulders while telling him, “I’ve learned that getting upset
doesn’t make your problems go away. It just gets in the way of dealing
with things and moving on.”
In fact, there is one
little story I read a long time ago that had a great deal of influence on
how I react to things today. At the time I first read the story I was the
kind of person who could “fly off the handle” very easily and I often
over reacted to things that other people told me before I investigated the
situation myself. After reading the story I changed my attitude and
learned to wait until I had all of the facts so that I could form my own
opinions and arrive at my own conclusions.
Let me share the story with you.
One day a weary mother returned from the store, lugging groceries
into the kitchen. Awaiting her arrival was her eight-year old son, eager
to relate to her what his five-year old younger brother had done.
“Mommy,” he said,
“I was outside and dad was on the phone and Billy took his crayons and
wrote on the wall. It’s on the new wall paper you just hung in the den.
I told him you’d be mad and would have to do it over again.”
She let out a moan and
furrowed her brow while shouting, “Where is your little brother?”
She emptied her arms
and with a purposeful stride marched to his closet where he had gone to
hide, calling his full name as she entered his bedroom. Billy trembled
with fear as he emerged from the closet, knowing full well that he was in
deep trouble.
For the next ten
minutes, she ranted and raved about the expensive wallpaper and how she
had saved for so long to get it done. She condemned his actions and total
lack of care and respect. The more she scolded the angrier she became.
Then she stomped from his room, totally distraught. She headed for
the den to confirm her fears.
When she saw the wall,
her eyes flooded with tears.
The message she read
pierced her soul like a knife.
It said, “I Love
Mommy,” surrounded by a heart.
Well, needless to say,
the wallpaper remained, just as she found it, with an empty picture frame
hung to surround it as a reminder to her and indeed to all who saw it from
that day forward to “take time to read the handwriting on the wall”.
There have been many
times in my life when I have been thankful for avoiding the urge to jump
to conclusions too soon. I discovered that it is always better to make the
RIGHT decision rather than make a QUICK decision that turns out to be
wrong. I have learned that unless it is a matter of extreme urgency, I am
always better off taking time to gather all of the relevant details before
forming an opinion or taking action. Far too often I have found myself in
situations where I wished I could have taken back my words or turned back
the clock and made different choices that would have resulted in much more
desirable outcomes.
And so, as I related to
my friend, it’s not a matter of never getting upset over things. Just
ask some of my former students and they will confirm that I can certainly
get upset from time to time and that I’m not always calm and relaxed.
I’ve just found that taking time to “read the handwriting on the
wall” before reacting to most situations is a much better way of
handling everything that life throws your way. |
