Day 19: Drudge. Driven. Drawn.

Dragged!  That’s what I first felt…dragged into this drudgery.  

I’m involved in a business which hit black ice in the fall of last year and began that seemingly helpless spin.  I felt that dreaded sense of control being lost and was instantly frightened.  And furious.  Fear and fury.  I don’t do well with either.  Who does??

“How are we going to get out of this?”  Fear…

“And how in the h-e-double hockey sticks did this even happen??”  Fury!

For the next several weeks, I throttled back-and-forth between fear and fury.  It was awful.  As is the case for most of us, I have felt fear over things far more important than business.  So, I was able to calm my fear with some clear-headed perspective.  But the fury persisted.  As I said, I’m not good with fury.  I’ve never really had to deal with fury.  I guess I’m lucky in that regard.

After far too many rough days and restless nights, I finally got past the fury by going back to the BTL basics.  I finally wrote about it.  And when I wrote about it, I uncovered the real root of my fury.  When I studied it and deeply dissected my anger, I came to the realization that, while a good bit of it was tied to the actions that put us in this mess, much of my fury was simply about being dragged into this drudgery — into something I have to do.  “I should NOT have to be dealing with this, dammit!”  I screamed to no one in particular.  “Well boo-hoo, Browny,”  the voice in my head shot back.  “Since when do YOU play the victim?”  And there it was.

When I simply changed my perspective, when I stopped seeing myself as a victim and, instead, started seeing myself as a wide-awake owner of my attitude, as a willing and able player in a position to impact the situation in a positive way, I began to see this as an opportunity.  This is NOT something I have to do, it’s something I get to do.  

“Where’s that perspective you’re always singing about, you hypocrite!!  You’re not dead!  You got knocked down.  So get up and RUN!!”  And that change of attitude changed everything.  

I realized I love being helpful even more than I loathe being dragged.  I love asking curious questions and encouraging others, not pointing fingers and wallowing with mopes.  So, I left the pity party without even saying goodbye and began focusing ONLY on what I could do to be helpful.  I traded the drudge for something to which I was drawn.

In doing so, it became increasingly obvious that the Company hitting black ice wasn’t my biggest problem.  My biggest problem was my unbridled response to it.  I had LET myself be overtaken by fury because I had let myself obsess over the cause, not the cure.  And cause lives in victimhood, next door to his brother, blame.  Cure does not.  Cure lives over the hill, in the direction of the sun.  There’s no guarantee how far you’ll need to run to find cure, but you sure as shoot won’t find it in victimhood.

I’m still in the mess, but cure is in sight.  There’s still drudge with which to deal, but I’m trying to focus on the parts to which I’m drawn.  It’s working.  It always does.