I got a work-related email Thursday that made my stomach churn. It was from a client asking me about an issue I’d managed to avoid to avoid talking with him about. I knew he wouldn’t be happy with a decision I’d made related to his account — and I dreaded the day when I would have to deal with it. That day had come.
For a few minutes, I stewed in my unhappiness. I worried about how I was going to handle it. And then something finally clicked in my brain. I forced myself to ask the question I needed to ask.
“What is it that I need to learn from this?”
It sounds ridiculously naive, but for the last few years, that one question has saved me from a lot of grief. It doesn’t protect me from my own mistakes, but it puts me in the right frame of mind to deal with problems. But this isn’t some technique I learned from a book.
It’s something I learned from the experience of a woman who says she died briefly and visited heaven. It might sound crazy, but it’s been useful for me.
Majority of Americans approve of feds snooping in name of security
I’m more afraid of sanctimonious smart people than of stupid people
Bureaucrats will find a way to punish you, so don’t make ’em mad
Who were you before someone told you who you were supposed to be?
False dichotomy: Your choice isn’t coercive state vs. lawlessness
The more nutty a preacher becomes, the more rabid some supporters are
I’m the common denominator for all of my dysfunctional romances
Lesson of ‘judgment day’ error? Certainty doesn’t indicate truth
A bully picked a fight that night — and now I’m dreaming about it