Problems Are Only Opportunities In Work Clothes

Posted on by davidwfelts

I had a thought this morning on the way to work, and it involved situations where I tend to get aggravated or irritated in life. What occurred to me, was in these times what really causes these flare up of my temperament is me becoming inconvenienced. It rarely is the actual situation I get upset with, but having my life altered to a reality I had not previously considered happening.

To say we humans are creatures of habit is an understatement to be sure. We like to have things the same; day in and day out. We live for the opportunities of being able to enjoy moments and have them play out the way we think they should in our heads. And anything which causes a disruption is looked upon as evil and something to be conquered rather than lived through.

Now to say at 56 I am just now beginning to understand this could be deemed embarrassing, or it could be looked upon as if the remainder of my life is about to become even better than I could ever imagine. You know if I’m going to go one way, why not go the way of positivity instead of negativity, huh?

When something disrupts my preconceived notion of what I think should be happening, what should my response be? I’ll tell you what it usually is, chaos. In any given situation in my past, my self talk might go something like this, “Well great! Now I’ve got to go and do such and so. Why is it ‘they’ can’t do this for themselves? Why am I always called upon to do these stupid tasks?” When in reality, perhaps I should look at it as, “WOW! They really trust me to get the job done.”

Being inconvenienced in life is a given. After all, Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But be of good cheer, for I (Jesus) have overcome the world.” John 16:33. We are called to be problem solvers, not problem explainers.

Recently I have begun listening to a complaint once, then looking for a solution from the person bringing the complaint to me. If they’re either unable or unwilling to devise a solution, and instead continue to complain about the situation, I extricate myself from the conversation. After all, if all we ever do is bitch about problems without finding answers for them, what use are we really?

Complaining about things is easy, it’s actually the default setting in humans. Just like any piece of equipment, the default settings are there to get the system up and running, but default settings aren’t written in stone, you can customize them to whatever you need them to be. Just like I can customize my remote control for instance, I can customize my responses to those things which cause the disruptions in my life. And when I change the way I see things, and begin looking for solutions instead of just griping, then this is when my life begins to be fuller and richer, and as in work, I begin to see the benefits of being a problem solver and not just a problem griper.

Let’s get out there today and be the answer to the problems of the world. In finding solutions to other people’s problems, we actually find our lives becoming more fulfilled.

For the Kingdom and the King, shalom!

Blogging…It’s Cheaper Than Therapy

Posted on by davidwfelts

What do you do when you’ve had one of those incredibly crappy days? You know the type; the days where it seems no matter what you did, it was just one huge mistake after another? In times past, I would find myself dialing my best friend’s number and talking with him about what was going on, But he died last year, leaving me to face these challenges all by myself now. And it’s not like I don’t have any other friends to talk to, because I do, and they’re good men too. It’s just I have never made the connection to any of them like I had with Terry, and I can honestly say my life is now much more difficult than it has ever been.

One thing I have found which helps me now is blogging. As I write out my thoughts to share with others, it forces me to think about what is actually going on, much like it did when Terry and I would talk. Most of the time by the end of my writing I’ve come up with the solution to my situation, or at the very least getting them out of my mind and onto the page allows them to vacate the real estate in my brain; freeing me to focus on the things which really matter.

Have you ever been to see a therapist? I have, and let me tell you even the cheapest ones will run you at the bare minimum a hundred bucks an hour. And unless you have great insurance which will pay for you to go, getting help can be very costly, very quick. But one thing’s for sure, we all need an outlet to release the stress and negative things which happen in our lives.

What is your outlet for stress release? Some people go to alcohol, sports, porn or any myriad of other things as a way of releasing the tensions of the day. But do these really help, or are they just masking the actual problem by dealing with its symptoms? It’s like this, you can knock down the cobwebs a spider creates, but unless you rid yourself of the spider, you will come back time and again to remove the pesky webbing. It’s the same in life too; if you find yourself facing the same problem time and again, then maybe you are not really fixing the problem, you’re only dealing with the symptoms.

As I said, blogging is what works for me, because in sharing my life; the good, bad and ugly, it forces me to see what is really going on and to make strides towards correcting the situations I face. Find a way to work through those things which are hindering you, and actually change the problem, not just the symptoms of the problem. Write me and let me know what works for you, I’d love to hear it.

You can reach me at david@davidwfelts.com

 

What Will You Do?

Posted on by davidwfelts

“What will you do when they catch you?”

“What will you do if they catch you?”

“What will you do if they break you?”

These three questions are lines from the upcoming Star Wars movie Rogue One; due out in December. (I am so excited!) But this morning as I was contemplating some things at work, they came to mind. In life sometimes there are things which happen outside of our control, and it is what we do when presented with these challenges that make or break us.

Each and every day we are presented with challenges; either at home, work, with our friends; no one is immune. Problems are like wolves chasing us down; we all have to deal with them eventually. But the situations we face aren’t really the problem, they are common to us all. The real struggle for each of us is how we deal with the problems when they show up; do we fly off the handle and go ballistic; looking like a fool, or do we passively just take it, only to gripe about the situation later to our loved ones? This is where the real battle lies; in how we deal with them.

“What will you do when they catch you?”

” What will you do if they catch you?”

“What will you do if they break you?”

Troubles are coming for you, do you have a plan to deal with them when they arrive? I must admit I usually don’t and end up regretting the responses I make when I’m presented with a challenge. I think one of the reasons I have such a hard time with this is because they mess up my routine. And who among us wants our routine to be upset? Humans are creatures of habit and when something interferes with that, it upsets the apple cart so to speak.

We have to work on being able to step outside of ourselves when these moments come and look at them objectively. For instance, I know at work when given the opportunity to add some more to my workload, it is not because my boss has decided to hurt me. On the contrary, it is because there is a situation which needs to be handled, and he has come to me because he knows I can get it done. Of course sometimes it takes me a minute to remind myself of this and make sure I keep my attitude in check.

These wolves which are nipping at our heels do their best to catch us and eventually break us; this is their job and they are good at it. What we have to do is stay one step ahead of them. And doing this requires the ability to keep a good, positive attitude when you can feel them breathing down your neck. 

As loud as they are yapping, you’ve got to be louder in voicing your positive attitude to yourself. And it can be hard, because a lot of times the other voices around you aren’t so positive and it can feel as if you are fighting a battle on two fronts.

The one thing I know, but have to remind my self daily, is I have what it takes, there is more to me than meets the eye and I am destined to do great things. Regardless of what any other voice is trying to tell me, these things I know are true for me and they are true for you as well. You just have to believe them and remind yourself daily.

So if these problems of life catch me, I’ll just not let them break me, because I’m better than that and so are you!

 

 

 

Dave Done Made Me Mad This Morning

Posted on by davidwfelts

Have you ever had one of those days at work? You know the type; you get up and your day is going great and everything, then something happens and the proverbial shit hits the fan. Before you know it, your great day goes to hell in a handbasket and you didn’t even see it coming. Yesterday was one of those days for me, let me tell you about it and what I learned from it.

I seem to have inadvertently made someone angry yesterday morning. Funny thing about it is, I had no clue I’d done anything wrong, or for that matter even what my crime was. 

As I went to the wash bay to find out what the problem was, it was brought to my attention that while I was washing out some pipe we had loaded on a truck earlier, the rust and dirt from inside the pipe had completely covered one of our loaders in the debris.

At the time I was just trying to get my job done and had no clue what had happened. Once I realized what I’d done, I set about to rectify the situation. I’m not sure why I was getting a cussing to go along with it; after all it was just an honest mistake and I jumped right in to rectify the problem.

My first reaction was to rail back and act a fool about this injustice in my life, but instead decided to take it like a man and just fix the situation. 

As I’ve studied on this today; I first decided I would not let someone else’s poor attitude affect mine. I would take the high road so to speak, I didn’t do this thing maliciously, it was just an accident and accidents happen. Secondly, I’ve been working to figure out if I do things like this myself and what I can do to change this behavior too.

The bottom line was I had inconvenienced someone, which had happened because of something I did. I heard them say later in the day, “Dave done made me mad this morning.” which gave me a chuckle. I thought to myself after hearing this, “I didn’t make you mad, the situation presented you an opportunity to get mad and you jumped in with both feet.”

We are all going to have times where things don’t go like we want them to, but what we need to do in those moments is step outside of ourselves and look at the situations for what they are; distractions to get us off of our game and make our days worse. If we will stop, take a breath and face the challenge with a better outlook, it will not only shock those around us who don’t do this, it will cause us to rise to the top and make our days so much better.

No one can make you mad, you may be presented with an opportunity to get mad, but the bottom line is this; if you get mad, it’s because you chose to.

Now you know what I think, tell me what you think.