Trust What You Know…

There’s an epidemic in the world today and it is people not trusting what they think.  Did you ever know something to be true and then second guessed yourself to death only to find out that what you “thought” you knew, you really did know?  Yeah, me too.  I remember when my son Chris was playing youth football in Layton.  He landed funny and sprained his thumb on the ground.  When we saw his thumb it was clearly twisted and facing in the wrong direction.  We rushed him to the Emergency Room at Davis Hospital (btw don’t go there…).  The ER doc took some x-rays and said his thumb was only sprained.  Then they put it in a cast.  We “knew” that his thumb was facing in the wrong direction and wondered how his thumb was going to get back into the right position sitting inside that immobilizing cast.  We asked the doctor and he said that eventually the swelling would go down and it would be okay…  We couldn’t get it out of our minds because we couldn’t imagine how a twisted thumb would become untwisted when the swelling went down.  Yet, because we were talking to a doctor, we let it go.  You see we knew something wasn’t right, but didn’t trust what we thought enough to take further action.  Two pitiful weeks later we took him to a specialist at McKay Dee Hospital because we “knew” something wasn’t right.  The specialist took x-rays and immediately scheduled him for surgery because…you guessed it…his thumb was not only twisted in the wrong position, but now it was setting in the wrong position.  Long story short the doctor repaired his thumb and all that was left was a little scar, not only on his thumb, but in our minds for “knowing” something was wrong and not acting on it right away.

So, why do we accept everyone’s opinion except our own in life’s situations?  Because we don’t trust ourselves and believe in ourselves enough to walk out on what we “know” with confidence.   Can you imagine that every successful innovator; every successful entrepreneur; every trend setter, started out with a host of folks who said it wouldn’t work and maybe only one (them-self) who thought it would?  We are so trained to doubt what we think and blindly accept what everyone else thinks.  But, only you know you, right?  Maybe God is working in you for something fantastic that will change the world, but you won’t act on what you know.  Maybe…  Ralph Waldo Emerson said it this way (we think a lot alike, right?):

“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”

See what I’m saying?  (Read that quote again…)

The only difference between many of the people we call great; those we quote; those we admire, is that they spoke or acted on what they knew and didn’t stop and wait around to get the world’s approval first.  We need to have that kind of boldness!  Make a decision and move!  How many ideas have you had that got you really excited?  What kind of things do you do, that are easy for you, and are well done when you do them?  (More RWE..sorry)  Newsflash!  Those are the things you should pursue!  Getting a safe job in a field that you hate; to get a secure salary; to settle for a quiet life of suburbia and minivans – isn’t really living if you were born to climb the Himalayas, explore the Peruvian jungle or start a vineyard in Northern California.  Nothing wrong with the suburbs, but wrong for you if you settled.

I’ve often thought that success in life isn’t in always making the right decisions, but rather in just “making” decisions – right or wrong.   Make a choice!  Decide!  Do that thing!  Pursue it, man/woman!  Quit hedging, quit making a “what if it won’t work plan,” quit trying to be so safe.  Haha  I know, been there, done that!  I really like to write.  Maybe I should write a book.  What if it sucks?  What if no-one reads it?  Who am I to think I can write a book?  What time do I have to be at work tomorrow?  See it?  Status quo, nothing changes, nothing happens.

All of us become besieged at times with self-doubt and attacks of the “second guessing” but at the end of the day (forgive the cliché’ but it’s my favorite), all we have to do is decide on a course of action, trust that God is at work within us, and move ahead pursuing the life we have imagined.  It doesn’t require luck, it requires resolve!

Be the man or woman you have always wanted to be…

Trust what you know and never put up with a crooked thumb!