Before I leave the subject of the book 20,000 Days and Counting, there’s one more point that hit me square between the eyes. The author, Robert D Smith, contends, in Chapter 10, that a simple change in perspective about problems in your life works magic.
Smith tells the story in this short chapter of how, when he was working the help line as a Crisis Center volunteer, he and his coworkers were trained to deal just with the caller. If a caller said they were having a problem with a relationship, they were not supposed to talk about the spouse, sibling, child, or parent with whom the caller was concerned. They were told to phrase their questions directly to the caller: “What can YOU do? What do YOU think? How do YOU feel about this?
The habit of looking at situations with that “I-focused” perspective is an unusual but absolutely effective trait. Smith goes on to explain that when we verbalize things like “he made me do that” or assume that we are the victim of someone else’s behavior, we give away our power. If we have the attitude that someone else’s behavior is the source of our problem, we give the power to fix the problem to someone else. The truth is that when YOU become, in your mind, the problem to be solved, YOU regain control over the situation.
Becoming your own problem is a thinking process, not a feeling process. It might FEEL negative to think you’re the problem, but in fact, it’s quite empowering. When you assume the responsibility, own the difficulty, Smith guarantees it creates the ability for you to find and enact a solution.
This concept is not new to me. But it is one of those life lessons we need to internalize so whenever we’re tempted to fall into a victim mentality, we’re jerked back to the reality of how easy it is to avoid that trap. Honestly, we can’t do a dang thing about anyone else’s behavior. We only have control over our own behavior.
Stephen Covey (in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) stresses this point when he talks about the Circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence. We are concerned about a lot of things, but what behavior we can actually influence is a very small subset. We are ALWAYS able to influence our own behavior.
Ralph C Stayer (the former CEO of Johnsonville Sausage) and his coauthor, James A Belasco also make this excellent point in their national bestselling book, Flight of the Buffalo. I still have a copy of that leadership tome. It’s so highlighted, marked up, and tabbed that it’s only useful (and valuable!) to me anymore. I’ll never purge it from my bookshelf.
Chapter 3 of Flight of the Buffalo is titled The Shocker: I Am The Problem. Stayer and Belasco clearly lay out the truth that victimitis is an epidemic that causes people to feel powerless. And that redefining the situation to eliminate the victimhood converts powerlessness to powerfulness.
Years ago, when I was mentoring at the Woman 2 Woman ministry at Lake of the Ozarks, I would meet with clients who spent the first hour telling me how their life would be so much better “if only…” The “if only” always involved other people who were causing the client’s problems. Victimization ran rampant in women who sought our services.
I listened for a while until I got a sense of whether or not the client reveled, or not, in their victimhood. I could usually tell in that first interview if the client would be able to successfully lift themselves out of their current circumstances. It depended on how they reacted to the question I posed to each and every one of them: What are you going to do about it?
I got a reputation around the ministry for making women cry the first time I met with them. After our initial meeting with a woman, we knew they’d probably react in one of three ways to that question. First were those who got angry and never got past blaming all their problems on someone else. They generally never came back for a second or third appointment. Then there were those who said they understood what had to be done, but for whatever reason were unwilling or unable to do it. We explained that only they could fix their own problems. We would not work harder than they would. We had a “three strikes, you’re out” policy for them.
Finally, the third group are those who cried. I seemed to have a knack (a gift, if you will) for making them understand without making them feel bad about themselves, that only they were responsible for, and only they could fix, the situation they were in. The tears were a form of grief, but also of joy at the glimmer of hope when I helped them understand how they weren’t powerless from that moment forward. This group was why we kept at it. We were so proud of their achievements!
One of the reasons Randy and I are still married today is a very memorable conversation we had early in our marriage, way before I knew anything formal about this concept. Randy was drinking too much and couldn’t seem to hold a job after he got out of the Air Force near the end of the Vietnam War. I was terrified of getting pregnant because of his unsettledness.
We sat down one day (in a nonemotional, nonthreatening situation) and I voiced my concerns. “Listen,” I said to him, “I have things I want to do with my life. You need to decide what your future is going to be like so I can decide if I want to continue to hitch my wagon to yours or go out on my own.”
Randy understood I wasn’t telling him he was, or had, the problem. I didn’t accuse him of anything. I was simply telling him I was unwilling to have a future with him if the current situation didn’t change.
How I instinctively knew this was my problem to solve, I can’t say. But I can testify to its absolute effectiveness. I thank God to this day that Randy also recognized his own problem to solve, and we were able to work out solutions that will lead us to celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary in 2025.
20,000 Days and Counting is a tiny, but hugely impactful, book. Maybe only for me, but I suspect everyone will get something from it. This is the last post I’ll write here about the book, but I’d like to hear if any of this resonated with you.
P.S. This is the time of year in Florida that I want to spend every minute outside. It’s simply magnificent. Now taking winter reservations at Grathen’s Last Resort. Come on down and spend some time in paradise with us.
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