Friday, January 06, 2006

This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be?

I was hangin' out with my 11 year old son last night ... he had Switchfoot crankin' thru the speakers and we were unwinding; kicked back on his bed. He was singin' along with the CD so I decided to take note of the words (good idea, eh parents?). The song was called, "This is Your Life," and the lyrics :

"This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be."

I dig this band, so I didn't expect to hear anything about biting off the heads of rabid bats, or some other kind of craziness. But the lyrics stuck in my head as I regularly speak with people who say something like:

"C'mon, I went to college for this?"
or,
"I am so tired of working for somebody else.
This isn't what I had in mind when I signed up."
or,
"Man, I'm just not motivated to go to work anymore.
This job is suckin' the life outta me."
and,
"I'm still lookin' for my dream job."

Here's my free advice, using the words of the great philosopher, Vanilla Ice, "Word to your mother." Hold on a sec, what does that mean, anyway?

Let's try this instead:

"Word to you (since we're not really talking about your mother)
- this is your life -
this is your job - if it's not everything you dreamed it would be,
it's time to stop complaining ... and start doing."


Sometimes, the best way to get started is to "get moving."

In David Noonan's book, Aesop & the CEO, Noonan relates a story from the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (can any other baby-boomers relate to this great movie?). Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) go to a Bolivian mine looking for work. The mining boss asks if they can handle a gun because the job requires protecting the company payroll. Throwing a wad of paper down the street, the boss tells Sundance to "hit that."

Flat-footed, gun already drawn, arm stiff, the normally dead-aim Sundance shoots but misses the target. As the disappointed boss walks away, Sundance asks, "Can I move?" whereupon he holsters his gun and then rapidly redraws while darting sideways, hitting the target dead on.

"I'm better when I move," he says.

Job isn't everything you dreamed? Stop complaining. Get moving. I bet you'll find that, like Sundance, you're likely to gain a different perspective when you are in motion.

And, you might just hit your target dead-on.

T-Mobile's Masked-Blogger
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