Today was a big day and a tough start to that big day. I’ve been involved with our company for a little while now. I’ve watched, shared, supported, encouraged, anything I could do from behind the scenes.
There’s going to be some changes to that. Changes to how involved I’m going to be and the view and interactions others will have with me. I am going to take a more active role and today started that activity. I get to walk with a new team member through their first steps of their journey with us. To say I’m a bit nervous, well, that feels silly to say but it’s true. I’m nervous about failing. I’m nervous about wrong choices. I’m nervous about getting things right. I’m nervous about relationships. I’m nervous about being in over my head.
You might think those nerves are the reason this morning didn’t work out as a great start. Maybe they played a part, but so did my beautiful, amazing, supportive and loving wife and I getting into a back and forth in the car about my perfectly fine driving might have been it too.
Sure, I cut it a bit close to that truck, but if they would have just kept doing what they were supposed to do it would have been just fine. She didn’t have to get so worried. I’ve got this. Why doesn’t she think I’ve got this? She wants me to drive her but doesn’t trust me to? Maybe I just shouldn’t drive her anymore. Maybe I just need to set a boundary that if you don’t trust my driving I won’t drive.
A bit of an overreaction, right? That’s where my high anxiety, trauma damaged brain goes to though. It may be an overreaction, but it’s not wrong. It’s not wrong because I have the power here. It really is up to me if I make the choice to drive or not drive. It’s up to me if I want to put myself in that position again for her to get scared with me and my perfectly fine driving. It’s important for me to realize I have more control in my life than I give myself credit for.
That’s the point of my blog today. I truly believe in the motto, you do you boo. I’ve seen it play out in so many interactions. The challenge, though, is that the choices I make have consequences. Good, bad or otherwise there are things that I experience because of my choices. Other’s experience things too, but I’ll get to that in a second.
For me, if I can’t handle the possibility of seeing and hearing my wife’s fear of my driving ,then I shouldn’t drive. If I keep driving, it’s not up to me to change her and how she responds to me. That’s not in my control. What is in my control is putting myself into that situation again and if I want to go through that. If I do, it’s not her fault she didn’t respond the way I wanted her to, it’s on me for making that choice.
There are certainly things that are out of our control. Victimhood is real. We don’t like to live in a world where things can actually be out of our control, but that is reality. Any other belief is just denial. For today though, let’s focus on the choices in life we actually do make.
We make choices every day of our lives, sometimes a different choice every moment. These choices interact with our world and the responses that come from them are not in our control. We do things, others react, we perceive. We can either perceive these things and decide that we like the reactions and continue to keep going in that direction, or we can decide we don’t like the reactions. Not liking the reactions doesn’t mean you stop or change direction. It means you own what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. The reaction may not be what you hoped for but the choice still needed to be made. The world may not have responded to what you chose for your life in the way you wanted, but you can’t change them. You can either change your choice for a different response or make the choice that it’s worth doing you even if they don’t get you. You do you boo, but that’s on you.
I’m not blaming you, or me. I’m saying, let’s understand the control we have for our own lives. I don’t need you to react to me the way I wanted you to in order to do what I want to do. I need to accept that you might not. Being me is more important that being your best version of me. There may be consequences to that. You may not want to be around me anymore. You may decide to stop communicating or wanting me to drive you. That’s okay. That’s you doing you. I can’t get upset. I also may not change. That’s on me to decide what’s worth it for me and for you to decide what’s worth it for you.
So often I see myself upset with others because of their reactions to me. I see myself struggling with why I wasn’t perceived the way I intended. I wonder why what I see is right for me isn’t agreed with by everyone else. Then I realize, none of that actually, really matters. What matters is my choices and if the value I gain outweighs the costs. Sounds like a great lesson for me as I dive into this new chapter in our company.
Journey-goers, everyone makes choices and insecurity drives us away from what’s best while choices made in security drive our whole journey towards better. There may be some more bumps in the road or twists we didn’t expect. Our journey is still moving forward, towards better.
Together, let’s own our lives, let’s own our choices, let’s dig in to who we are. Let’s not let insecurity steal who we are away from the world. The world needs you. I need you. The real you.
So you do you boo, but that’s on you. You’ve got this, you really do.