Eleven Hints for Life – 7 of 11

March 16, 2014

7. Dream what you want to dream, go where you want to go, be what you want to be. Because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do. – Unknown

This is the “don’t hold back” hint. This is the hint that says when you get to the end of it, don’t look back with a long list of coulda, woulda, shoulda’s. As the Nike commercial says so eloquently – Just do it!

The key here is to realize that the only thing holding you back some times is you. That is not to say that all things are possible for you. Maybe your dream is to be an reach for starsNFL football player but you are 5’6’’ and weigh 147 pounds. Ain’t gonna happen bro’; unless you are a spectacular kicker. You do have to have somewhat realistic dreams. All of us have some dreams that are better left as dreams or fantasies.

Most things in life are not precluded to you at the start and it is important that you not preclude them for yourself. I saw a saying that I’ll try to find the attribution for later that went something like this – “Don’t ask can I do this; rather ask how can I do this.” In other words don’t stop yourself; challenge yourself to figure it out.

A popular movie a few years back was The Bucket List, which focused upon the doings of some older gentlemen who were trying to live out their dreams before they kicked the bucket. It was funny and poignant at the same time; but it actually drives home the point that you shouldn’t wait until you are in the end-game of your life to pursue your dreams – the things that you’ve always wanted to do.

Sometimes we allow others to hold us back. We take what they say to heart, whetherfemale climber it be about us and our abilities to accomplish our dreams or about our dreams themselves. In answer to that I offer these two quotes that just seem to fit –

“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.” – George Bernard Shaw

And,

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” –  Christopher Reeve

Certainly, if you can summon up the belief in yourself and the will to try, you should not let the opinions of others stand in your way.

So, when you get to your own personal end game, don’t be the one making a bucket list; instead, be the one with the smile on their face and the “been there and done that” list in their hand.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Eleven Hints for Life – 6 of 11

March 15, 2014

6. Don’t go for looks, they can deceive. Don’t go for wealth, even that fades away. Go for someone who makes you smile because it takes only a smile to make a dark day seem bright. – Unknown

There are just tons of quotes and sayings with similar messages and advice. Almost all focus upon getting beyond the superficial and finding true happiness is something deeper than looks and possessions or wealth.

Someday that good looking wealthy person will find that it’s not enough to be given yet another bauble to cover over a transgression or disappointment. Another new car or another trip to the islands won’t heal the wounds this time. It’s not because they aren’t nice; it’s just that those things don’t make them smile or laugh.

In my post of March 12, about best friends I reused the oft used line from poems, novels, movies and weddings, “you make me complete.” Perhaps some of what that line means is “you make me happy”, or put another way, “you make me smile.” The perfect person in your life will also be the one that makes you laugh.

LOLA smile is like a rainbow turned upside down and it does brighten up the day. Laughter is what a smile sounds like when it gets too big for you to hold on your face and bursts out into the world. A smile can cut through the darkness of gloom and laughter can pierce through even the silent depths of despair. A person who is able to smile and laugh is well armored against anything that life can throw at them.

One curious side benefit of having a smile on your face is that it makes you mysterious and interesting. It drives other people nuts, because they want to know why you are smiling; so, you’ll get to meet more people because they’ll want to talk to you to find out why you are always smiling. Maybe you can put a smile of their faces, too.

Oft times in life you need a good laugh more than you need another possession and life is so much easier to get through with a smile on your face. Remember that there are no ugly smiles and even the very poor can find things to laugh about. So search for that soul mate that can make you smile and laugh and you’ll live life in a better place together forever.

Poet W. H. Auden put it well when he said – “Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator; but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.”

And as for a smile; I love this quote by Mother Teresa – “Let us always meet each other with smiles, for a smile is the beginning of love.”

Put on your happy face and smile!

happy face

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Eleven Hints for life – 5 of 11

March 14, 2014

5. It takes only a minute to get a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone-but it takes a lifetime to forget someone. – Unknown

We could probably argue the timeline in this quote forever; however, the underlying points would stay the same. The whole “love at first sight” thing is probably the crush part. We oftencrush initially mistake a crush for love. A crush is defined as in the Urban Dictionary as “a burning desire to be with someone who you find very attractive and extremely special.” Most times the heat in that burning desire is based mainly upon a sexual attraction and it is somewhat telling that crushes are most often associated with the young, who have yet to learn how to control those desires.

friendsYou can probably establish whether you like someone in any hour; however they might also be able to fake it for an hour. The kind of shallow relationship that you can establish in an hour is probably fairly fragile. Sure I can say that I like you after an hour, but maybe what I’m really saying is I don’t not-like you – you haven’t done anything to turn me off yet.  At least I’ve moved off neutral in that hour and hopefully the next few hours will reinforce that feeling. For some the subsequent hours may uncover things about that person that they kept hidden initially and you’ll reconsider whether you like them or not. Time will turn that “like” into friendship (or more) or reveal a bad initial decision that is best put behind you.

I really don’t agree that you can love someone in a day, but you can make a good start at it. I think you can get beyond crush and maybe get to “like’ in that day, but love takes a few more experiences than you can get in within a day. Just like the comments about liking someone, it is possible that you’ve only seen what they carefully wanted you to see in that day. To truly young couplelove someone you have to go through more things, more emotions, more ups and downs and you can’t do that in a day. Love carries with it some unspoken extra criteria – trust being one of the most important. Love means opening up yourself to that person and that requires trust. You don’t usually build that level of trust in a day.

For some there will be a trip through all three levels. They can move from an initial crush to discovering that they really like the person too. When the passion that may have fueled the crush is tempered by time and circumstances and you have a like for that person, there is the opportunity to move on to the next level and truly love them. For most the relationships either die when the crush fades or they settle in at the friendship level and let it go at that. That’s not a bad thing; you need friends – people that you like. Maybe you can even trust them to a certain degree, just not enough to open your sole to them.

Finally, I agree with the thought that it takes a lifetime to forget someone, even if they never made it further than the crush level. Once we take time to focus upon anyone and single them out  beyond being just a face in the crowd they are stamped into our minds forever. They may not be someone that you think about every day; but, I guarantee you that there will be triggers embedded somewhere in your brain that will bring their faces back into view and maybe you will even remember their name. For sure you will remember whatever the circumstances were of your relationship with them. I don’t believe that you will ever really forget them. Hopefully those memories will be pleasant and not negative.

Find someone to like today and start making memories.

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Eleven Hints for Life – 4 of 11

March 13, 2014

4. it’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it, but it’s also true that we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives. – Unknown

There’s also a saying that ignorance is bliss. I don’t think that’s really true. In the case of today’s saying ignorance (in this case, not knowing what you’ve been missing) might just be the absence of dissatisfaction, which is really not the same as bliss.

We all have many “Oh, crap” moments in life when we ask ourselves, “Why did I let him/her go? What was thinking when I gave that away? How could I not have wanted to do that?  So whether it is a blown relationship, the loss of a possession of maybe just missing an opportunity that we had; sometimes we don’t stop and think about things until it’s too late and they are gone. You don’t get do-overs in life. If you’re lucky, you may be given a second chance.

loving coupleSo the message is not so much just hold on to what you’ve got; but, rather to appreciate what you’ve got enough that you’ll want to hold in to it or him or her. All too often we lose something or someone because we haven’t taken time to realize its/their value in our lives. Especially in the case of people, sometimes it’s not that we don’t love them; it’s that we don’t show them that love and they just wander off thinking that we don’t love them.

Things sometimes wither and die or rust away if they are not cared for regularly. The same happens with relationships. Left alone on a dark corner or ignored and left un-nurtured even the best relationships will eventually wither and die. Take stock of what and who you have and be thankful and attentive to the needs of both.

As for the joy of discovering something new when it arrives; many times the excitement is new babyincreased if that something new that has arrived opens up new vistas in your life. You hear that said a lot from new parents about their babies. Until they have their own baby in the family the concept was there intellectually, but the reality was someone else’s – a friend or other family member, maybe. Most of the time new parents will admit later that they had no real idea what an impact having a baby would have on their lives and how much joy that puppycould bring. As you get older, and your babies are gone, a new puppy can sometimes serve the same purpose. There’s nothing like a little puppy breath to re-kindle those dormant parenting emotions. In cases of both babies and puppies, you may find yourself asking, “Why did I wait so long to do this?”

Prior to those experiences, perhaps it was the arrival of your soul mate into your life that you didn’t know that you were missing. You will often hear in wedding vows some variation of the phrase, “you make me complete.” It wasn’t that you weren’t happy before; but, for many there may have been a nagging feeling of incompleteness, the sense that somehow things weren’t quite right in your life, or maybe a gnawing emptiness that could not be filled by possessions or friends or pastimes.

Then along comes your soul mate and all is right with the world. You didn’t know what you were missing; you just knew it was something or someone. Now, you don’t know how you’d live without him/her.  Just work hard at it so that don’t go back to the start of today’s  little quote and lose what you’ve just found.

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Eleven hints for Life – 3 of 11

March 12, 2014

3. The best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on a porch swing with, never say a word, and then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you’ve ever had. – Unknown

This is one of those areas in which I think there is a big difference between men and women. It has been my observation that once men get out of childhood, where it seems like they could still have best friends; as adults, they tend to have buddies instead, maybe even best buddies; but I’m not sure that they have best friends, at least not other men as best friends. Men may have golfing buddies or hunting buddies or even buddies on sports teams that they belong to. They may have some buddies at work and in other social settings, but no one that they would feel comfortable sitting next to on a porch swing.  After all, we are taught that’s just not manly.

Women, on the other hand, seem to retain the ability to have best friends even in their adult lives. Sure, women have lots of other friends or acquaintances (they don’t tend to use the term “buddy”, but “girl friend” seems popular), too; usually in social group settings. Women tend to allow for bonding better than men.  Women tend to be less competitive with each other in day-to-day social settings.  That’s not to say that they aren’t competitive in sports and business and other areas of life; they are; however, they also seem to be more supportive of each other than men. They don’t have that mental block that would prevent them from sitting next to their female best friend on the swing and maybe even giving her a hug.

So what is the difference between buddies and best friends? My gut feeling is that in order to be a best friend (the kind talked about in the saying for today) you have to open up and allow yourself to be vulnerable. Men tend to hate to do that, so they get to the buddy level of friendship and are satisfied with that, precisely because they don’t have to open up further.

Women, on the other hand, seem more receptive to the idea of opening up to other women, sharing more of their feelings and leaving themselves more vulnerable.They are not embarrassed to cry in front of each other. Men will only cry together with other men while watching the Brian Piccolo story movie and then will turn away from each other so the others don’t see the tears.

It’s really kind of sad that boys are trained as they mature into the role of self-reliant, emotionally hardened manhood and end up unable to get back in touch with the openness that allowed them to have best friends with other boys as a child. The one exception that I see the most in men is that, over time, most men break though that emotional barrier with their wives. The men who can’t even get to that level of best friend with the one that they are spending their life with often end up in divorce.

The men who do find their way back to that childhood experience of total openness and vulnerability with their loved one; find out again how pleasant and satisfying it can be to welcome another soul into share their personal space. It’s a beautiful thing and can lead to that ability to sit on the porch swing hand-in-hand or with arms around and have the best conversation without saying a word. So, reach back and recapture that ability and reach out at least to your spouse and make a new BFF.

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“11 Hints for Life” – 2 of 11

March 11, 2014

2. A sad thing in life is when you meet someone who

means a lot to you, only to find out in the end that it was
never meant to be and you just have to let go. – Unknown

This is a relatively easy hint for life to look back on from the vantage point of old age and say, “So? What’s the hint?” The last six words in that hint work not only for when things don’t work out with people that you initially think you really like; but, also for almost any disappointment that you will face in life.  YOU JUST HAVE TO LET GO!

dissapointed ladyI have written more than one post with the topic line, “So what?” You have to develop the ability to say, So What To disappointments in life. So what if that girl or guy that you really like turned you down for the prom. So what if that co-worker at the office said no to your invitation for a date. So what if you didn’t make the cheer squad or the football team. Did the world come to an end? Did your heart that just got broken stop beating? Did losing that big deal that you were counting on mean that you are fired, out of work and now homeless and hopeless. NO! Sure it’s disappointing, maybe it even hurts for a while;but,  life goes on and you must too.  YOU JUST HAVE TO LET IT GO.

The older you get the more of these let it go moments you’ll have to reflect back on and the less trouble you’ll have saying, so what. But for youth, with unblemished hopes and aspirations to match their young smooth skin (we won’t go there with the acne thing); the bruises that come with disappointments have nowhere to hide, so they just show there, on the skin or on the shoulder, for all the world to see. Most youth have no frame of reference to count on for things getting better; the first time is always the worst time that something happens. YOU JUST HAVE TO LET IT GO.

So whether it’s in middle school or high school or maybe even college, when you meet thatbroken heart first someone that you really like (I mean really , really like – the keeps you awake at night thinking about it like) and it just doesn’t work out. It is a sad thing; but,  YOU JUST HAVE TO LET IT GO.

I know that I haven’t earned your trust yet, but trust me on this. It turns out that it isn’t the end of the world, just the end of the world as you knew it. It’s sad, yes; it hurts, yes, but it turns out that with a world population of a little over 7 billion people, there is as high probability of finding another person that you really, really like and who likes you back. Soooooo. YOU JUST HAVE TO LET IT GO – AND GET ON WITH LIFE.

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“Eleven Hints for Life” – 1 of 11

March 10, 2014

1. It hurts to love someone and not be loved in return. But what is more painful is to love someone and never find the courage to let that person know how you feel. – Unknown

This is the first of 11 posts based upon this little string “11 Hints for Life” that I found while searching for quotes and saying about life. You can go find all 11 now if you wish by just Googling the title; but I intend to take them one by one and delve a little deeper into each one.  Most of them tend to revolve around relationships that one can have as we go through life.

The first hint can be viewed from many different angles, but the result is always the same. Whether it is a parent or sibling or it is a potential life mate. The point is not to wait to tell them that you love them. It is always especially poignant to hear someone say at a funeral, “I never got to tell him that I loved him.” That happens a lot in families. We grow up and grow distant. We get involved and focused upon ourselves and our lives and often forget to tell those who raised us that we still love them, until it is too late. The same can happen with brothers and sisters.

In most of those family cases, it’s not that you aren’t loved in return; it’s really that both of you have just forgotten to express that love to each other. The enemy of love is not hate, it is apathy. Stay in touch and never miss an opportunity at family gatherings or wherever to let those that you love know how you feel.  Don’t let family funerals become “coulda, woulda, shoulda”-fests about never getting to say “I love you.”

But what of those who aren’t family and for whom we feel that we have love and yet cannot seem to find the way to express it to them.  The reluctance to express your love for someone is usually driven mainly by the fear of rejection; the fear of the embarrassment of laying your heart and soul open and on the line and having both trampled by rejection.

I recall one of those pop-up proposals that sometimes make the news or which occur in the middle of an event of some sort and are captured on video for all to see later. In this case the young man dropped to one knee, opened a ring case and asked the young lady, “Will you marry me?” She said, “No.” Wow, how must that guy have felt? That is the nightmare that we have that causes the fear of expressing our love in the first place.

Unrequited love is often a misguided, one-sided affair that is mainly in our minds. Many times, especially in the young; it may really be lust or infatuation and not really love. Love takes time to develop and mature. The old saying, “It was love at first sight”, is not really true. It could be that you like someone at first sight or even were attracted to hen at first sight, but love – I don’t think so. Love comes from below the surface and you don’t get below the surface on first sight.

A relationship that can eventually turn into mutual love can also start out horribly out of sync. One party can be way ahead of the other in the relationship and in their feelings, at least in their mind. It is important to understand that when it happens and to try to get a handle on where the other party is in the relationship. You can’t just walk up to someone who may barely know that you exist and blurt out, “I love you.”  That’s not what the opening quote is trying to say. Getting up the courage to eventually say,” I love you” starts with getting up the courage to say, ”Hi, my name is…” and goes on from there. Give love time to develop in both parties. If it is meant to be, it will be. The first step to love is friendship.

Unrequited love may also be a consequence of the circumstances. Perhaps the person that you feel love for is already in a relationship with another. You have to accept that and move on. If you can, file those feeling s away, in case you need them again in the future. Think of how many stories you’ve heard about people getting back together after both had separate lives with others, yet they still had love for each other somewhere in the backs of their minds. By the time that they got back together they were also mature enough to really understand what love is.

Obviously, dealing with unrequited love is easier said (and written about) than done. Thousands of books, articles, poems and songs have been written about it, but is still hurts when it happens to you. It is important that you accept that and move on with your life, rather than letting your feelings for that person become an obsession. Obsessions tend to be crippling things that do no good in our lives. We have all at least heard the term stalking. Stalking is what can happen when unrequited love becomes an obsession. Have you ever heard of a good ending in a case of stalking? If you are at that tipping-point in an imagined relationship or have already begun to stalk someone, it is time to get some serious help. Fortunately, things don’t usually go that far.

So, I guess the bottom-line hint for today is to find a way, the best way for the situation, to let those that you have love for, know of your feelings. You may have to work at it, if the relationship is out of sync to begin with or it may just be something that you need to say to a family loved-one at every opportunity that you get. Either way, don’t end up regretting that you never told that person that you loved them.

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Reflections about life…

March 8, 2014

I came across two quotes that I really like because they focus upon a couple of aspects of life that we need to understand or at least acknowledge. The first saying deals with the need to think about things and plan a bit in life –

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser – John W. Gardner

At its most basic level this little quote is saying that in life we get no “do-overs”, there is no eraser; no ability to say “Ooppsie, can I do that again?” I thought almost immediately about a toy from my childhood that is still popular today – the Etch-A-Sketch. What a fun, and at the same time frustrating, toy that was. You could make really neat drawing on one, draw anything really; however, you absolutely had to really think it out and plan it out ahead of time, because there was no way to pick up the etching stylus inside and move it to a new location. It would be like putting your pencil on the paper and not being allowed to lift it again until the drawing is done. You can now get Etch-A-Sketch as a free app for your smartphone, if you’re up to dealing with a lot of frustration, give it a try. And as inspiration for what can be done without an eraser, click here to see a gallery of Etch-A-Sketch art or here to watch a YouTube video of an Etch-A-Sketch in action, albeit in the hands of a very patient artist.

When you think about it life is like that. Time is our stylus (or pencil) and we don’t get to stop time and go back or erase what we’ve done, if we’ve drawn ourselves into a corner. Our pencils are on the paper, so to speak and we can only move forward through time with the drawings that are our lives.

The other saying that seemed to fit is this one that is also about time –

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards – Doren Kierkegaard

Our lives are often analyzed by looking back over events or decisions; it’s sort of like the stock market where everyone’s an expert on what happened yesterday and no one has a clue what will happen tomorrow. Actually the expert opinion about what caused the rise or dip in the market yesterday is subject to widely different interpretations; so there really aren’t any experts on that either.

What we strive to do sometimes is to look back at situations and reflect on our own actions. Why did we do that? What did we say that? What was I thinking? Reflections like that on the past help us organize and archive or experiences and thoughts about them into our knowledge base and eventually jell into what we call wisdom. Of course, by the time many of us become wise, the thing that we are wisest about may well be how differently things might have been had we only known then. There is a thin line sometimes between wisdom and regret.

I think one take-away from combining the thoughts from those two quotes is that you need to think things out before you draw a mistake into your life and that one way to help with that is to reflect upon, learn from the past and build your storehouse of wisdom; however, you cannot spend all of your time reflecting upon the past nor planning for the future; you have a today to live, so get on with it.

 

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Put your burdens down…

March 6, 2014

“Everyone has his burden; what counts is how you carry it.”  (Hugh McLeod) as seen on my favorite daily blog – Jack’s Winning Words.

Obviously, McLeod wasn’t talking about the size and weight of your backpack or your briefcase, if you’re an adult. His reference is to the mental and emotional loads that most of us haul around – a few pounds of remorse, along with several pounds of regret, maybe some fear, uncertainty and doubt to add a little to the load, and of course gobs of self-doubt and self-depreciation. All of this may be carried, along with sadness, anger, and maybe some jealousy and hate for good measure. Maybe your burden of bad decisions that you’ve made (or perhaps that one whopper of bad judgment that you’ll never get away from), which you now drag along behind like a long tail. Maybe you are weighed down by the coulda, woudlda, shoulda’s in your life. No matter what the makeup these are our burdens in life.

The point is that we all accumulate these things as we journey through life. It is impossible to live without making mistakes that we might later regret. It’s OK to have those burdens according to McLeod; if you know how to carry them. That is probably the point in that little saying upon which I disagree with McLeod. I would  re-state his saying to be, “Everyone has his burdens; what counts is your ability to put them down.”

I would argue that finding a way to keep a stiff upper lip and carrying your burdens through life while playing the role of the good dobby, is both wrong and damaging. It is wrong to hold things in, to keep them to yourself, to let them fester and have control over your life. It is damaging to yourself to let your burdens grow until they beat you down or cause you to vent your anger on others as a release.

To my way of thinking it is much better to find a way to put those burdens down. If they are feelings of disappointment, jealousy or hate, they are likely aimed at someone else and you need to confront that and get it behind you. Most times that means confronting the person at whom the feelings are aimed and talking things out. At least bring that burden to closure, put it down. Get it (and maybe them) behind you and get on with life.

If your burden is directed inward in feelings of inadequacy or self-loathing, seek help from those around you who care about you and love you – family, friends, your pastor, your teachers – they are there if you just reach out. They will probably just tell you what you already know – that they love you for who you are.  It’s just good to hear that from others some times. And if you really can’t think of anyone for that role, remember that there is One who loves you no matter what. Ask Him for help. He will not turn you down.

You must learn to love yourself before you can truly love others. Be content with what you are and who you are and find happiness in spending time alone with yourself. Talk to yourself (out loud if that works for you) and talk the things out that are burdening you. You’ll be amazed how much it helps sometimes to just verbalize those gnawing issues that have become your burdens. Sometimes they sound kind of silly, once you put them into words.  See which one you can put down with having to confront anyone else because they are really all about you. Put those down first.

So, maybe you have that real whopper of a burden that you’re carrying; something really bad that maybe got you into more trouble than being grounded for a week. Maybe you even got suspended from school or perhaps even arrested. It was bad and you know that now. It was wrong and you know that now, too; and you won’t do that again. The real burden that you are carrying is probably more about worrying about how people might react if they find out about that incident in your life and how they will judge you because of it. How do you put that down?

I’ll bet that half of the successful motivational speakers in America are out there entertaining audiences and inspiring them with stories of their big mistakes – how they used to do drugs or rob and stole when they were younger. Many of them relate the consequences that they had to pay for their burdens – prison time for many. But, there they are, in front of the audience telling their story and getting applause for it. They turned it around to a positive life lesson that they want to share with others and which others are happy that they’ve shared. That’s how they put that burden down.

So, rather than let your personal whopper continue to be a burden, stand up and tell your story. Admit that you were wrong and talk about how that changed your life and made you a better person. Do it in small groups or in front of an audience. I think you’ll find that approach to be an extremely liberating thing to do, since you’ll no longer be consumed by the fear of someone finding out and forming an opinion about you based on what they hear. Tell them what you want them to hear and help them form their opinion of you based upon who you’ve become because of that experience. Put that burden down.

And don’t worry about not being cool. The people who think you’re not cool for standing up and talking about what you did wrong and what is right are not the people that you really want to be around anyway. Many of them may end up as motivational speakers, if they get out of prison. It’s the people who listen and take your story to heart that you want around you; the people who then share their stories with you and give you a hug because you inspired them to put their burden down, too.

So take stock today of the burdens that you’ve been carrying and get started on the mental and emotional housecleaning necessary to put them down. Life is a lot more fun without all of that excess baggage. Don’t carry them around; put your burdens down.

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Problem Solving 101

March 5, 2014

“Don’t fight the problem, decide it!”  (George C. Marshall)

Yet another sayings that was featured on one of my favorite blog – Jack’s Winning Words

I’ve read elsewhere that when people and animals are suddenly confronted by danger – by a problem – they usually have one of two reactions fight or flight. The reactive response is either to turn and face the issue with an offensive move of your own – to fight – or to turn away and run away from the problem – to take flight as a defensive measure.

There is a difference in the reaction that George Marshall is supporting in today’s little quote. He is not espousing and aggressive, belligerent fight as the solution; nor is he recommending that you run a away and avoid the problem.  By saying “decide it”, he is telling us to use an intelligent approach to the problem. Understand it. Evaluate it. Seek alternative solutions to it, Pick the best alternative. Implement the best solution. Evaluate the results. Choose another solution if the first didn’t work and keep trying. In other words – decide it.

Many of us (I plead guilty to this all too often) just try to let the problem sit there, in hopes that it will eventually go away. That is a form of denial and it solves nothing. In some cases the problem actually gets bigger that longer it’s allowed to go unresolved. That strategy is a form of flight because circling a problem over and over s is as much running away from it as turning your back on it is.

One thing that I’ve finally realized after way too many years is that the problems that we perceive just get bigger than they really are in our own imaginations if we circle around and around them. Worrying and worrying about all of the things that could go wrong if you confront a problem just seems to feed it and make it look bigger. We must eventually turn and face it; but at least we can do so intelligently.

Over the span of a career in the IT technology and services industry, I had the opportunity to take many sales training courses. One of he best was at Xerox during my last foray back into that world. At that course they stressed a technique for dealing with objections (problems) that they reduced to a cute little four letter memory device – CPRT. Those four letters stand for – Clarify, Paraphrase, Respond, Test. I liked that little device enough that I had rubber bracelets with CPRT embossed into them made for my classmates.

CPRT breaks down this way. First you try to Clarify what the problem is. Often it is a lack of clarity about some issue that is at the heart of the problem. Once you have agreement that you understand what the problem is you Paraphrase it back – putting it in your own words and getting agreement with whomever you need to that you have in fact captured the issues. Next you Respond to the problem; you suggest a solution. Finally you Test for whether your response is, in fact, a solution – If I do what I’ve just suggested, will that fix things?

Many times, especially in relationships; once you have clarified the problem and paraphrased it back, your best response may well be an apology. Perhaps the problem was one that you caused with some remark or some slight, real or imagined that you didn’t realize. An apology can defuse many situations. Some times; however, the hurt was so deep, the split so complete, the problem so large, that a simple apology will not fix it. In those cases it is often best to back off and let time work its magic. Time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds, but it does take the sting off and allow for healing.

It may well be that a relationship damaged by a problem can never be the same as it was before and you have to deal with that. If having a relationship with that person is important to you; you may have to work hard, not to get back to where you were (that may not be possible), but to at least the best place that you both can still get to. Then let it go at that.

So try that mnemonic  CPRT the next time that you hit a problem and see if it helps you. At least it’s better that running around in circles not knowing what to do. That’s another little ditty that used to be popular – when in trouble or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout. I think I prefer CPRT or even better KCCO.

9 Comments | Inspiration, Pure fun | Permalink
Posted by Norm Werner

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