I love living in a time and country in which we have choices.
Today, my wife and I took our youngest to a World K-9 Frisbee Championships near our house. It was absolutely amazing to watch these handlers and their dogs do these fantastic things with frisbees! The handlers had to throw the frisbees in just the right place and these dogs ran so fast to catch them. They also did some really cool tricks with the frisbees, like jump off of the handler and catch a frisbee that the handler threw up in the air. To think of all of the time and effort the handlers have to put in practice and training, all of the time they spend travelling, making sure the dogs are healthy and don’t get sick or injured. Take a moment to let all of that sink-in.
So what does that have to do with my opening statement about choices? These people could do so many things with their lives and yet they CHOOSE to do this in their lives! Is it how I choose to live my life? No, but I respect so much their choice to do this with their lives.
On Friday, I asked Janet, one of the owners of the company I work for, what she was going to do this weekend with a three day weekend here. I figured with it being Labor Day weekend, she was going to do something fun, maybe a house project, see family, etc. Nope. She said she was going to spend most of the weekend in the office getting work done! Now for me, life is not work. For me, I will work hard and put in my time to get my work done, but I will not make work my life. There are so many more things to do in this world than spend my time only working. Again, do I choose to spend my days off working? No, but I respect my boss’ choice to do that with her life.
The thing I like most about Janet’s response to my question was that she accepted the fact she chooses to work and does not feel sorry for herself or blame life for her choice. She could be one of those people that says “yes, I’d rather be doing (fill in the blank), but I HAVE to work”, feeling sorry for herself. She’s not one of those people and that is refreshing in a world today in which many people forget, especially more so here in the United States, that they have the ability to change things and alter their own lives.
Our oldest is away this weekend at a friend’s lakehouse this weekend. Last night, my wife got an angry text from her and subsequently called her because our daughter felt like she was being picked-on by both of her friends. She kept blaming her friends for the way they were treating her and was miserable because of them. After a brief discussion, my wife explained to our daughter that she wasn’t seeing it from her friends’ perspective. It was very possible that they did not know that what they were doing was bothering her. My wife went on to further explain that our daughter was not a victim in this scenario and she had a choice on how she responded to their teasing, that she really needed to address this with them, and should let them know that what they were doing hurt her.
I am happy to report that shortly after their conversation, my wife got an update text from our daughter. She had a conversation with her friends, let them know that the way they were treating was affecting her, and her friends apologized, making everything right again! Everything was right in our daughter’s world again by making the choice to address her problem, rather than avoid it.
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