Easy Breezey Free Flow and Quick instead of Slow Complex Strenuous and Frustrating.
Want to know the difference?
I’ll show you in just a minute.
This blog post was born last week with a trip to the Sunshine State. In fact, many posts will eventually come from that mind-blowing weekend among the wisdom of our teachers and the engagement of the working students of the Steve Chandler Coaching Prosperity School.
Now, on to the examples…
I used to pack LOTS of clothes for any trip I took. TONS. I always enjoyed having an array of options of clothing for different circumstances, activities or weather, when away from home. On camping trips or roadtrips or flying trips, I always wanted to bring lots to be comfortable with whatever came up.
So, when flying this means that I had been bringing a very full suitcase, a stuffed backpack and a laptop case too.
Not this time. I remembered the feeling of dragging all that stuff through the airport and decided to fit all my clothes for the weekend into a carry-on. I left the laptop at home.
So as I walked past the long line of people waiting to check bags, and quickly passed through security, I was laughing at the simplicity of my airport experience. In fact, I kept waiting for someone to mention that my carry-on was too big or I couldn’t have my backpack too, or whatever.
It just went from a really complex frustrating and difficult situation, to simple and easy and quick.
The same day, as I landed in L.A.X. and picked up the rental car, I made it to the hotel and had some lunch and got a quick rest in before heading down the coast for an afternoon of sightseeing and later dinner with family.
This example is about driving on the PCH 1 Highway through L.A.
I’ve done this before. I blogged about it last week.
Here is something else worth mentioning: To make a plan to look at the ocean as you drive south through the connecting city-plexes and beach systems along the coast, it can be a challenge.
In many cases, the PCH 1 highway doesn’t follow very closely to the ocean’s edge. To get those views of the Blue, I was popping down alternate roads, neighborhood cul-de-sacs and generally bumping into lots of complexity.
See that’s the way the edge of the coast is. Complex. There are little peninsulas and harbors and beaches. They all have little roads that scatter across and down and back, but not really one continuous road right on the water’s edge. Waaaay up north in California, this same road, does exactly that. Not in So Cal.
So I spent the afternoon, quite happily, bumping along and attempting to see cool coastline and ocean views. I saw some. I saw lots of other stuff too. Like stoplights and shopping centers, houses and houses and houses. Some beach areas, which surprisingly are hard to enjoy while zipping thru traffic and trying not to crash my rental car.
Eventually, I had driven long enough that my right foot was cramped up, and I began to use my left. I just kept on though. Over 5 hours I spent driving and then had a fun and tasty dinner with Bob and Caroline, Stacy, Don and Jeff. It was a pleasure to see them!
My trip back to the hotel?? I jumped on the 5 to the 405 to the 90, the freeway, and blasted home in relative ease. I think it took an hour and half at most.
It was a highly simplified way to travel. It wasn’t a shortcut, just a much more efficient way to get from A to B.
So, one more of these examples was my trip to Venice Beach. Wow. What a MOVING and interesting place to be!
My first day in L.A. I had arrived at Venice by leaving the hotel parking lot, driving next to the water, and keeping on going and turning, following through little apartment complexes and over bridges, until I saw some indication of the Beach. I got there in 15 min or so. Not too shabby for a Kansas kid! I didnt’ use a map or anything, and I found my way to a cute little lunch spot, and a walk out on the pier.
A couple days later, I was up early, from the transformative and thought shocking exercises of the Coaching School. I decided to go for a walk. I had seen the marina out front the day before, so I walked out the back doors of the hotel and into an alley. I made my way down and around the alley, only to find the very same street I had been on before, when I ate lunch at Venice Beach!
In fact, I was only a few blocks away from the pier and beach and everything! I walked down to the water’s edge, waaaay faster than I could have driven there, from my previous knowledge of ‘the way to the beach’ experience.
Really?!? Yes.
I was in fact already closer than I ever realized and the back-door walking route was easy cheezey breezey and my hour long walk along the powerful ever relentless crashes and undulations of the waves proved quite monumental.
So, what is the connecting theme between all of these instances? Why have I spent your valuable time and attention on this??
It’s all about Choices. The Choice is what creates the shortcut. The quicker, easier, more direct route. The more specific the Choice, the more efficient the path can be found.
See, when I packed a bunch of clothes to cover every possible weather condition, dressing style (which is a joke!) and activity, I really hadn’t made true choices. I had just made a lot of options avaible to choose later. And I paid for that in time wasted and energy expended.
Same goes for driving down the coast. I thought ‘well, I’ll just stick close to the water, and see what sights show up. Then I’ll have the option to pull off wherever I want.” Yeah, but… that plan requires a much greater depth of knowledge of the areas than I possess. Or that I was willing to acquire on my phone’s gps while flying along in traffic. I went down so many dead ends and turnarounds, and missed turns that my trip involved lots of wasted time and energy (again).
Sure, I appreciated the sights. Had I CHOSEN specific places to visit first, then I could have planned a much more efficient route and actually stopped to soak in those places, because of all the extra time and energy.
AND, my trip to the beach, out the back-door?? Well that’s just silly. Had I made a Choice to learn from someone or something with directions, instead of just trying to figure it out on my own? I would have spent both of my valuable mornings walking the sands and feeling God’s power in the surf. So it turns out, I was blessed with dumb luck. 🙂
Every action we take in our lives is truly Our Choice. We do have this wonderful option right at our fingertips. We make choices constantly, whether we realize it or not. The key is that if we focus on making those choices as specific and intentional and heart-inspired as possible, then we can get the right directions.
If we’re stuck, or frustrated, feeling like things are slow and complicated, taking too long and less enjoyable than we just know they could be, there is one thing to check on: Have we made a real solid specific Choice?
In my experience, using this awesome power we have, isn’t a shortcut or cheating. It does feel like it though. It becomes almost effortless and we get to the good stuff so much faster. So why not choose??
Life will keep on passing by, no matter how frustrated we are with it. That’s when you know it’s the perfect time to Rise Up and Choose!
Sincerely,
Aaron Nichols
