Problems? Or Adventure?

Problems? Or Adventure?

I’ve been doing some listening, and a lot of thinking.

There are multiple way to view each of the situations we find ourselves in. and here is what I find interesting, when we look back at situations, we are looking back on them, we survived them, we transcended them. In most cases when we look back, we realize and remember the moments, and there doesn’t seem to be a whole bunch of emotion – negative or positive attached to these circumstances.

I got thinking when I look back I don’t see all the issues, all the problems, all the pain, I see the adventure, and I see that I survived it.

By nature – for whatever reason, I tend to be a negative person. Cup half empty, or more like, dirty cup, or, that’s not the cup I wanted!!! And I’m trying to shift my thinking around to the positive side of things. So I got to thinking, what if, in the moment, I didn’t see problems; instead I tried to look at things differently?

What if, in the moment, I saw life as an adventure?

One of the things leaders do is make the covert – overt. They take what is hidden away; either something that is causing problems, or something that needs to be celebrated, and they bring it out into the open. If it is a problem, it is brought into the open with a team, in the hopes of solving it. If it’s a gem, it’s brought out to be celebrated. I saw my new idea as a gem. So I brought it out in the open.

I paraded the thought around with my kids, and with my wife.

Life is an adventure!!!

I started saying – this is the best day ever!!! And when my kids questioned it (Seriously dad? What was so special about today?), I said, well, so far I have only lived one day at a time. I don’t get to live any of my old days again, and I don’t get to have tomorrow yet, so this is it!! This is the best day! Because it is the only day we have!!!

One of the first true tests of my “LIFE IS ADVENTURE” paradigm came this summer, when we were camping with our fifth wheel. Me my wife and 4 kids, and the truck started acting up, on our way back through the mountains from Jasper it started to have difficulty starting – what if it didn’t start? I kept reminding everyone – well we can see it as a problem – or an adventure!!

And it made things better, I kept saying – hey – either way “It’s the best day ever!!” and it worked – it bent things towards the positive and helped us had better days. Then it happened, the truck would not start. We were stranded, on a day hike at Siffleur falls, and we would have to walk back to camp, with the kids praying, I tried one last time the truck started, and the kids screamed “YA BEST DAY EVER! – LIFE IS AN ADENTURE!!!”

Fast forward a couple of months, and I head out to men’s retreat, which starts with a rousing game of man style Dodgeball. I can’t seem to give up my youthful intensity…

And wham.

Right at the end of the game, I completely rupture my achilles tendon.

Worst part of this injury – I know exactly how long recovery is because I tore my right achilles 8 years ago.

Yay.

The guys load me in my car.

Drive me back to Red Deer.

I spend the next 6 hours with my wife at the hospital, waiting, getting triaged, assessed, and casted with full leg splint.

The next morning, in pain, my 9 year old daughter, comes to the side of my bed, she has heard what happened the night before. Mom has told her that I am in a lot of pain. She knows that there will be surgery. And that the recovery will be long.

And yet, with all that knowledge, she looks into my eyes, and somewhat sheepishly, with her golden mussed up blonde morning locks over her eyes, her chin down, she starts to ask. You can tell, that its one of those questions, that a kid asks that comes from some place deep within them. Like they are trying to figure the universe out.

Or figure you out.

Or life out.

And she softly says,

“So, daddy, is it still the best day ever?”

A with tears whelming up in my eyes, I pull her close, and say, “Of course honey – it’s the only day we have to live?”

Life is an adventure, live this day, as if it was your last, as if it is the only day you get to live. Because you only get to live one day at a time.

slv2all