Ever feel like you’re running in place and getting nowhere? Or that you can see the light at the end of the tunnel but can never reach it? It’s kinda like there’s a cosmic practical joker out there snickering at us while we try and try and try to reach something perpetually out of reach. It can feel like this because we can’t see the whole picture. You know, when you’re in the middle of things you can’t see the big picture. To get perspective you would need to stop what you’re doing, step back, and refocus. But when we’re struggling our instinct is to do more, not stop and do less. In fact, thinking of stopping causes fear and panic and overwhelm so we automatically start doing more, anything more, in order to make that go away. That’s productive, right?
However, if the problem isn’t that we’re stuck but that there is a delay between what we do and the results that come from it, then working more and doing more and putting more things into play creates its own issues. I call this the tsunami effect. So we’ve been doing and doing and doing which has been building up a response. The response is going to be equal to all the work we’ve put in, just all at once rather than in regular deposits. It’s going to take all of our energy to deal with switching from trying to make things happen into managing things that are happening, but we’re up for it and hopefully we haven’t bitten off more than we can chew. Often people don’t realize that what has dropped in their lap is the result of their work. They see it as a disruption, as an added burden or a problem to be resolved so that just cope with it, shake their fists at fate, then go back to working as if nothing had happened. They will get “tripped up” like this time and again until they realize that they aren’t being punished or sidetracked, they are getting what they asked for. Hopefully not before they have worn themselves out or decided to go a different way.
Meanwhile, those who panic and take on more or do more, create a tsunami of events. They think they need to push harder or fill in the gaps and they do successfully. And then everything is successful on them all at once. Yay!!!???? Unfortunately they aren’t able to handle it successfully or well at all because it is too much all at once and they aren’t prepared for the change. They get swamped by everything and some go under.
So when you think that things are never going to work out, are never going to actually come to fruition, that you need to work harder and push things through, instead of pushing, stop. Take a step back. Evaluate the situation from the eagle’s eye view. Getting perspective on things can save you from unnecessary effort and unnecessary heart aches.