What did you learn from it?

I was going for a walk the other day and noticed I was asking myself why I created a really difficult old friend visiting the previous weekend. These days, it isn’t surprising to you when someone asks, “Why did you create that?”

 It’s not a bad or wrong question but there’s always been something about the question that bothered me a bit. Now I know what it is. Implied in that little question is “you dope”. It’s kind of saying, “That was a really lame and hard thing you created for yourself, you dope. Why’d you do that?”

Then I realized I didn’t care very much why I had created the situation but what I did care about was what I could learn for the future from the experience. Maybe it was a little dopey of me to expect someone I had been friends with over 40 years ago to be a person I would necessarily enjoy spending a weekend with at this time of my life.

So what I learned from the situation is:

1. Just because I might have agreed a couple of months ago to do something I didn’t really want to do now, I could have changed my mind.
2. To really trust my intuition about situations with people. I have an intuitive gift about people and situations. Use it. Follow it.

3. If I don’t do #1 and #2, forgive myself and move on.
So next time you hear yourself ask, “Why did I create that?” remember that only if the answer will positively change your future behavior, i.e. you learn something from it, is it a valid and self-empowering question.

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