Writing for the average mind sells. Status quo loves company. Commiserating in print with the everyday woes of Joe and Julie Meedieoker always gathers a lot of Facebook ‘likes’. Oh, me to. Defnitly relate. I mean where were there heads? LOL.
No. You know I’m not exaggerating. Syntax, spelling and grammar are breathtakingly abysmal. FB only highlights it.
Average is exceptional, mediocre is above-and-beyond and everybody loves a just-getting-byer. Hearing about someone else’s dryer tub full of underwhelming negatives is cheap entertainment and conveniently helps them forget their own.
If you happen to be related to Joe and Julie, you’ll stop reading now.
I don’t write to connect with average and unmotivated minds. Never have. I write to connect with the others. Thinkers. Dreamers. Doers. The dissatisfied, the ones willing to ask the awkward, even embarrassing questions and stay put long enough to isolate and absorb the answers.
- Why is it this way?
- Is there a better way to do this?
- What are we doing that isn’t working any more, and why are we still doing it?
- What can we stop doing to make room and resources for something fresh that will work?
- In light of those same questions, what about me?
Here’s what I asked myself, so I’ll just ask you like I asked me.
What’s your favorite crutch? Your ‘go-to’ blankie when something or someone disturbs, jiggles or otherwise upsets your space-time continuum? It’s your autopilot, your fallback reset when the big, bad world gets a little, well–too big and bad.
How often do you hit RESET? Ah. I knew there was a sharp tip to this point.
There is.
When your fav, frayed-around-the-edges blankie starts making demands on your otherwise-productive hours it’s time to retire the blankie. When you catch yourself making a habit of stumping around on that crutch when both legs are fine and – truth be told – could use the exercise, it’s time to get rid of that crutch.
Aw, c’mon–what’d my blankie ever do to you? I’ve only had it like forEVer. We’re pretty much inseparable.
I know. That’s why it needs to go. That soft, warm, familiar, always-there blankie will get so huge it will smother everything God’s wanting to do in and through you. Your effectiveness, resolve, character, even your witness will increasingly be tangled and wrapped up in those distractingly-soft folds of what started out as just a safe place from life when it gets out of hand and you get out of sorts.
Remember, I’m writing to people who are disgusted with status-quo woes and looking for 2014-style ways to grow.
Face it. The blankie’s become too big, too soft, inviting and popular. It’s started to take the place of what you’re really after in life. Rather than a place of relaxation, of rest from the harsh demands of life, that blankie is now making harsh demands.
Really? Right. A voracious blanket . . . Hey. I get it. I tried to dodge the point, too, the first time it became clear.
The crutch was a great tool that really came in handy when life got rough and the going got tough. You used it. Then you used it more. Then you started getting creative in finding reasons to limp.
Then reasons morphed into excuses.
Then you weren’t using the crutch any more.
It was using you.
If you’re uneasy right now and finding it hard to keep from glancing down and away from your monitor, I get that, too.
No one who’s ever done anything of lasting value has ever gotten through life without fighting their way out of a miles-square blankie that didn’t want to let them go. No one’s gotten by in this life without having to deal with a crutch suddenly so big they found themselves stumbling and tripping over it any time they tried to accomplish something worthwhile. Especially if it involved their spiritual life.
You’re no different than me.
This isn’t about recrimination, pointing fingers, faultfinding or being condescending toward anybody. Especially yourself. That’s what mediocre, average minds do. You are neither or you wouldn’t still be reading.
This is about choosing to shred that comfortable old blankie into rags you can use to clean up and polish the ‘you’ that’s been there all along. It’s about cutting up that too-familiar crutch and making some wind chimes that remind you every time you hear them of what happens when even innocent-seeming things are allowed to get too big and take too much time.
You do realize that crutches are usually made of aluminum. Those wind chimes are going to make some, ah, interesting sounds.
Yep. They do. I never said they’d sound good. I said every time you hear them—— Okay-okay. I was just trying to deflect again. This isn’t an easy exercise.
Nope. Not. But I know you’ve got it in you to make the change if you want to bad enough. Just like I know you’ve been a little sick inside at how easy and often you’ve been falling back on blankie or crutch, as if to justify not getting after being and doing what you’ve been designed to be and do at this point in your life.
You’ve heard it. “Make a difference or make excuses, but don’t bother trying to do both at the same time.” That’s never worked and it never will.
2014. Rags and wind chimes. How about it?
And remember–I love you and I believe in you!
© D. Dean Boone, January 2014