Bold & The Beautiful... and Chain Reactions
by Chris Johnson
(c)Copyright 2011, 2014
Do you want to know one of the craziest things about my life as a mentalist?
I can read people and I can predict future events... yet, I have trouble sometimes in seeing EVERYTHING.
I can blunder about like a klutz through life, or some stumbling child, and then suddenly things start happening around me that seem totally out of control... such that I wonder, "How the f*ck did I miss that?" or something else similar.
This morning I went out for a run at 4:30am because something in my life has been bothering me and I could not sleep. While I was out doing my run, I was thinking to myself about how some things just go out of whack and it's because I may FORGET (or fail) to think first... and at the age I am approaching now, that's pretty bloody embarrassing.
An observation came to mind from something that happened years ago
and I was around to witness. Someone I knew used to have a laptop which they used on the coffee table. They also decided to make themselves a spider to drink with lots of Coca Cola in it, ice cream, flavouring, etc.
The coffee table stood on a mat which had a lump in it from bunching up. It had been there a while but no one had bothered to straighten it out.
You don't need to be a mentalist or a psychic to know what happened.
This person was walking back to the laptop to do some work, while enjoying their spider... and... TRIP! Oopsy! Oh, shit!!!
One hand goes out to catch themselves, the other drops the glass... the glass misses the floor... hits the coffee table... somehow the glass of the table stayed intact.... even luckier the drinking glass stayed intact as well.... Lucky the glass missed the laptop.... but wait!!! There's MORE!!!!
The glass lands on its base (phew!).... but the momentum keeps it moving... it wobbles.... in true slow motion.... and then.... tips.......
It falls.....
It spills....
Coca Cola fizzes about the table surface.... and... runs.... onto the floor.... and then.... and then.... Oh, crap!!!
It runs towards the laptop!!! It spreads, fizzing as bubbles escape... and then runs UNDER the laptop.... while more splashes (where did THEY come from?) take a life of their own and land right on the laptop's keyboard!!!
Amid the cursings come an accusation levelled at me, saying, "Why didn't you see that happening?"... but I ignored that because I was too busy finding tea towels and napkins to soak the sticky mess up.
Curses were aimed more so at things like :-
- how Coca Cola is really sticky shit
- that icecream really does melt fast in a keyboard
- not being able to enjoy the spider
- who was the bastard that invented gravity anyway
The laptop was totally stuffed and we watched it die a painful death as its blue screen became a faint dot in the display's centre.
All of this from neglecting to either step around that lump in the mat or, better still, fixing it up earlier.
There is an important lesson here and it's one that we can apply to our lives in either business, in our lives, even our relationships with friends, family and partner.
We must look ahead, consider our actions and the consequences if we wish to avoid the dramas.
While running, I also remembered from books like Art of War by Sun Tsu (I've mentioned him before) that a general thinks ahead in multiple steps.
People who lead well, reduce dramas in their lives, and head off problems before they occur and they do that by being able to see many steps ahead as well as the array of possible consequences to their actions. Then they adjust their actions to suit the best outcome.
Those who have lots of drama around them are only looking at immediate consequences, rather than the consequences further down the track... if they are looking at any at all.
It's not that they enjoy it... only that they failed to consider it.
It’s the simple difference between thinking:
- If I take this action, consequence A will happen, or…
- If I take this action, consequence A will happen, which will lead to consequence B, which will lead to C, which will lead to….well, you get the picture.
As an example, you might want to buy a brand new super-duper television set for $500 and you have $500 in the bank.
If you go and buy it now, you may have the immediate pleasure of owning a television set that can let you watchyour favourite shows in awesome colour with a bitching sound system.... but did you remember that you had the $550 put aside to pay your electricity bill so that you can turn it on?
You probably won't realise that until the lights don't turn on for you, you fumble around in the dark to find matches and a candle, miss seeing the lump in the mat that you still haven't fixed yet (even after your laptop died earlier) so that you trip, fall and hit your head on the corner of that coffee table... hit your head so hard that you're knocked unconscious and suffer a bad head injury such that you can't get up to ring the ambulance for help... and your friend isn't around to help because you already told him to piss off because he hadn't warned you to watch out for the lump in the mat!
(close up shot of you bleeding on the floor in the dark while the piano player tickles out some dramatic music... and fades out to a commercial plugging health insurance)
So when you are making a decision about doing something, stop to think about the far-reaching consequences.
Before I close, I'd like to add something.
When you make a mistake, learn from it. When someone else makes a mistake, learn from their consequences so you don't make the same mistake yourself later... but consider the actions as well.
And when you make the mistakes, we all do, learn to forgive yourself for it as well.
We are all human..... well, most of us :)
ESPecially best wishes
Chris Johnson
www.thementalist.com.au
