Too often we attempt to change our lives by changing our feelings. Am I right?
We want to give up and quit—on relationships, jobs, or living situations—when things start to feel messy and unpleasant. We can feel tempted to dwell and spend a lot of time hyping up our emotions and blame everyone else. And, instead of calming ourselves down, we call upon the people who will help us catastrophize it even more.
We think: if I can just change the circumstances that make me feel poorly, everything will feel good again, right?
In some cases it might be best to change our circumstances (especially in times of danger or harm). However, most times we only want to quit because of our emotions. The problem with this is that is makes us more like leaves and less like trees, rootless and weak. Quitting solely due to adverse feelings usually just also confirms our fears: that we aren’t cut out for what we really want in life.
Prudence is the virtue that gives us the ability to transform our fears into hope by looking at the truth of situations. It encourages us to listen to our emotions, but not to act on them. Instead we should reevaluate situations based on its facts rather than its passion. Then with this wisdom, we give a more thoughtful response.
When we take this intentional pause with uncomfortable events or moments, we usually realize that the situation is no where near as bad as we thought. All we needed was some space to gain sage perspective.
William James, the father of psychology in the US, once said, “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.” When we find ourselves in uncomfortable situations, learn to stop letting the untrue or irrational thoughts take over. If we do, will find ourselves living entirely different lives. We begin to filter out the lies, and focus on the positive, true information. Overtime, we react less strongly to interpersonal conflict, and, instead, just let it be.
When we begin to wisely consider situations through this lens, we begin planting our roots—and it’s these roots are what will keep us from being dramatically swayed by the inevitable wind that will come our way in life.
The CEO of a company I previously worked for once recounted his past experience to myself and some other employees. Before he had started what is now a relatively large enterprise, he faced a major crossroad in his life. He could have either continued the path he was on or decide to branch out. His current path would support him and his family comfortably while branching out would be completely unpredictable.
Many of us find ourselves facing decisions similar to this. Do I stay where I’m at, where it’s comfortable and predictable? Or should I take the risk of doing something new, knowing that I may fail? There is no right answer for every situation, but perhaps the words of this CEO can offer a new perspective.
Most people, he told us, when faced with a choice like this fear failure. What if I take a risk and fail? However, it isn’t the people who try and fail who are unsuccessful; it’s the ones who never make a decision. We can all learn from failure, but those who never make a decision don’t move forward.
Of course, this CEO decided to take the risk and his branching out eventually led him to develop an international conglomerate of over 5,000 employees. While I’m no longer associated with the company, this lesson has stuck with me. With the encouragement if these wise words, I’ve traveled, I’ve met amazing people, I’ve left when it would have been easier to stay, I’ve held tight to relationships that would have otherwise seemed too difficult, and I’ve spoken up when I could have said nothing. Through all these joys, mistakes and surprises, I’ve become a wiser person.
Developing the virtue of Prudence often requires going through a similar refinement process. Prudence means making sound decisions. In order to act prudently, we must first develop the ability to recognize what decisions are most prosperous. And the best way to learn this? Life experience – making decisions and learning from the successes, mistakes, and failures. As the CEO above suggested, the key isn’t to avoid failure, but to learn from every situation. Every decision we make has the capability to refine us into a wiser person if we are willing to learn from it.
Give Yourself Some Grace
As parents, we have all had moments when we had to learn the hard way, perhaps in our careers, our parenting styles or something else. However, these decisions don’t have to define who we are. You are so much more than the mistakes you’ve made. By freeing yourself from the temptation to make your mistakes your identity, you may muster the strength to reflect on the situation. If you find that you are making similar mistakes repeatedly, you may want to consider taking time to truly define the error. It could be that you are looking at it from the wrong vantage point.
Give Your Kids The Space To Grow
As much as we want to spare our children from the heart-wrenching moments, making their own mistakes can turn into very valuable lessons for the future. Also remember that without the risk of failing, none of us have the chance to truly succeed. Giving children reasonable and safe space to make their own decisions can enable them to accomplish feats they are proud of, knowing that they did it on their own.
Growing in the virtue of Prudence is not eliminating risk, but rather learning when to take the right risks. As J. K. Rowling cleverly stated, “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not lived at all. In which case, you’ve failed by default.” Keep living, giving yourself and those around you the freedom to make decisions, take appropriate risks, and experience the outcomes that can lead to greater wisdom.
I wish I would have listened to my parents. How many times have you caught yourself saying that?
A few months back I asked my parents a “what if” question. If they could go back and change anything about how they parented me as well as my siblings, what would they change? One of the answers surprised me. They both said they wish they would have taught us to choose our friends wisely.
As I thought about their answer a little bit more I caught myself thinking, I wish I would have listened to my parents about that guy, that person, or that group of friends that I chose to hang around. At that point in my life I didn’t realize that both my friendships and relationships were forming my character not only at that particular time but for my future as well.
So, what can we do to help our children choose their friends wisely?
Be an example
We can help our children choose their friends wisely by making prudent decisions in our own relationships. Our children emulate everything we do. When we demonstrate good relationship skills, whether it be with our spouse, children, our friends or our children’s teachers and other parents, we are showing our children through our actions what it means to maintain and foster a healthy relationship.
We can also be an example to our children by cutting out any bad relationships we currently have. We may not have chosen the best relationships in the past, but that doesn’t mean we have to carry them into our future. This would be a good opportunity to show our children how to walk away from an unhealthy relationship. Letting them know that even though it may be hard, it is the right decision and the right decision is not always the easiest.
Be your ideal friend
In order to be an example for our children we have to be the ideal friend we wish we could have or better yet be the friend we would like our children to have. One of the great things we can do for our children is to help them set goals and standards for what they will and will not accept in a friendship or any type of relationship. In the following short video, Danya Bacchus, a news anchor for NBC 7 News in San Diego, gives a great summary of what it takes to choose friends wisely. Click here to watch.
Discuss the characteristics of a good friend with your children; loving, loyal, respectful of others, courageous, generous, truthful, joyful, patient, someone who will always challenge and help you to be better, someone that won’t put or pull you down. Encourage your children to live the characteristics that you come up with as a family and to surround themselves with people who treat them with these same values. Inspire them to be their ideal friend for it is in living this way that they will naturally draw friends with similar values to themselves.
Be an active part of your children’s life
Being an active parent doesn’t just mean attending sports games and school events. Being an active parents also involves being active emotionally in our children’s life. When we take the time to engage in our children’s life we are showing them what it means to be a friend. We are taking the time to show them we care. We are actively listening to their concerns, frustrations and anger as well as their triumph and success. We are sharing with them in life’s moments and helping them get through the rest. By being emotionally involved in our children’s life we are more capable of acknowledging our children’s positive choices and helping them navigate through the negative ones.
Being an engaged parent also means taking the time to sit down and discuss our children’s current friendships frequently. We can talk to them about how friends should treat one another and explain how relationships can affect us both physically and emotionally; they can help either help us to grow or bring us down. It is important for our children to know the effect that friends can have on them in both a negative and positive way. It is as Thomas Watson once said, “Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.”