WHAT HELP IS AROUND YOU?
WHAT HELP IS AROUND YOU?
I read a very popular business book called "Who moved my cheese?" The book is a fun story about two mice and two small "mouse sized" humans that live in a maze and their pursuit to find their personal cheese, and the different ways they adjust and handle CHANGE in their lives. The author is a psychologist who is world renowned for taking complex ideas and turning them into easy to understand, very simple terms. Right...mans inability to adapt to change in their life, turns into a story of cheese and a maze. Hahha. bit think about it...How many of us over complicate our lives; how often we overanalyze a simple situation?
We often think a simple answer cannot be the correct answer because it is, well, too simple. The fact is life can be very simple, I'm not saying easy, but simple. There is another simple story I love... A man is stranded in the ocean. He is on a little boat, he has a little bit of food and water, but not much. Definitely not as much as he would like, but he isn't in complete panic yet, but he knows he might be in trouble if something doesn't change. One day, another boat comes along. Not a special boat, nothing too spectacular. Actually some of the paint is chipping, and it's a little dirty. But it calls out to the man, but he doesn't think that's the boat for him, so he stays with his boat. He still floating in his boat with his food and water. A few days later, and a helicopter flys by. It calls down to him, the pilot says he can help the stranded man, but he decides it's not the right helicopter. He doesn't need that helicopter. Then a week goes by, no other boats or helicopters come by...and then a storm comes. The waves hit the boat Hard, The storm flips the boat, the man goes into the ocean and the man drowns in the sea. The man gets to Heaven and he is upset at the way his life ended. He asks God, why didn't you save me? Why did I die? How could God treat him that way? And God looks at the man and says "I sent you a boat, I sent you a helicopter, what were you waiting for? COME ON!"... Haha.
Now I know it seems like a silly story, but how quickly we can try and hold out for the "perfect boat" or "perfect helicopter" in our lives. We can be going through life, with help all around us, resources all around us but we are determined to do it all alone and We can think help is weakness. But the little man rowing his boat could have saved his own life if he had just accepted the help that was available and moved forward. Now, if that man had no food, no water, maybe he gets on that boat. I know when I got sober, I was ready for ANY help. ANY boat. ANY helicopter. Hell, just hand me the little arm- floaties the kids wear. Haha. I was desperate. In recovery, many people talk about the GIFT OF DESPERATION. We are so lost, so broken, so much at our bottom, that people will take anything. To say it another way, how many people decide to start chasing dreams after they find out they have life threatening disease? Why do we only start changing our lives under such extreme circumstances? It doesn't need to be that way.
In the story, the man has his water and he has his food...they were his comfort. We have a lot of comfort in our lives that are preventing us from truly attacking our BIG, PURPOSE DRIVEN lives. But when we make the decision to accept help from others, when we say we will not wait for the desperation, let's not wait for the life threatening illness or circumstance to kick in, let's just make the choice today, that we are not going to be blind to the hell around us. We will see the opportunities around us. We will not let the comforts and familiarity of our circumstance keep us from doing more, being more, caring more, loving move, dreaming more and ACTING more. So take a moment, pick your head up, and ask "WHAT HELP IS AROUND RIGHT NOW?" And have the courage to accept it. (7.27.17 - Phillip Andrew)
