RULE EIGHT
… for a Better Way to Live
Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busywork. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!
You may know this type of person. You may even be one. If you are, I’m glad you’ve come to me. He or she is always busy, always has more projects and meetings and errands than can be handled, and there is always frantic scurrying from place to place to try—just to try—to stay ahead of things. What these type of people are involved in is an unconscious but very effective effort to avoid success. Oh, they’re busy alright—doing every possible insignificant chore and task they can find so that if they are ever presented with a real challenge, something that could truly make a great difference in their lives and their welfare, it is always easy for them to respond that they’re sorry but they’re just too busy right now to take on any more.
Sound familiar? I hope that you haven’t been unconsciously working hard at failing by keeping yourself involved in “busywork” that won’t do anything for you but keep you in that long rut. If it’s any consolation, you’ve got plenty of company. It takes just as much energy to fail, you know, as it does to succeed, and that’s why we have so many active, busy people who cannot understand why nothing is happening in their lives.
If you happen to think you may be in that category, maybe you’re doing what you’re doing because someone pushed your “kill switch” years ago. Yes, your “kill switch!” I was going to do a whole book on this, years ago, but this is the first time I’ve discussed it in print.
Once I purchased a very expensive convertible automobile, and of course the dealer persuaded me that I should not take that priceless vehicle on the street and park it in any public lot before having a burglar alarm installed that would erupt in a loud and piercing siren if anyone ever tried to break in, jump-start my jewel, and drive it away. Of course, I agreed.
One morning, late for an appointment, I dashed out to my garage, inserted the key in the ignition, turned it … but nothing happened. Not even a moan. Nothing. Battery stone-dead? Doubtful. I turned on the radio. It played, loudly. I inserted a cassette in the tape player. Ella Fitzgerald and her “Mack the Knife.” Great fidelity. I turned on the windshield wipers. Two sprays of water spurted from hidden openings, and the wipers flapped back and forth in perfect synchrony. Frustrated and angry, I stormed back into the house and called my friendly auto salesperson.
“We installed a burglar alarm in that baby, didn’t we, Og?”
“Three hundred bucks’ worth!”
“Then you probably have accidentally tripped the ‘kill switch.’ ”
“The ‘kill switch’?”
“Yes, it’s a feature of the more sophisticated burglar-alarm systems. Didn’t they explain it to you when they installed the unit?”
I was getting angrier by the moment. “I would certainly have remembered anybody talking about putting a ‘kill switch’ in my car. What is it and where is it?”
“It’s part of the burglar alarm. After you leave the auto and lock it, you then turn another key in that little slot that was installed in your fender, right? That activates the alarm so that if anyone tries to jimmy open any door or breaks one of the windows, the alarm is triggered.”
“Right.”
“Well, the ‘kill switch’ is an additional level of protection. Somewhere inside the car, usually under the dash or beneath the rug, another small switch was installed. If you push that, prior to your leaving the car, and then lock the door and turn on your alarm, you are truly protected against car theft. Even if someone breaks in and they’re foolish enough to try to jump-start the car while the alarm is sounding, they will fail, because once you’ve turned on the ‘kill switch,’ it cuts off all power going from the battery to the ignition. The car cannot be moved.”
I returned to the garage, but I could not locate my “kill switch,” and within an hour the sales rep was at the house. Of course, he found it almost immediately, under the front carpet on the driver’s side. Yes, the switch had been tripped. I had probably accidentally nudged it with my foot, but I couldn’t remain angry, even with myself, since the priceless analogy that incident provided me with, which related to so many human beings I knew, has been invaluable to me when I’m trying to convince someone that he or she is wasting too much time on “busy” but inconsequential work.
You see, my automobile really had acted quite normal when I first turned the key in the ignition. Its lights went on, its radio played, its windshield wipers zapped back and forth. Busy, busy car. Like so many people I know. Only one problem. The machine was unable to move forward even a single inch despite all its activity, because I had tripped its “kill switch.”
All of us have our own “kill switches.” Perhaps when we were young, someone, even a parent or another respected adult, or a spouse in later years, might have told us one day, in a fit of anger, that we would never amount to much. Zap! That did it! Unknowingly, and unthinking, they pushed our switch, and we’ve been spending all these years working very hard to make their prophecy come true, without even understanding the motivation for our actions. We’re “busy” alright, but like my car, we’re not going anywhere. And we don’t understand why. How sad.
Reach down and turn off that “kill switch” now that you know you have one. “Busywork” is out. Stop hiding behind all those petty chores. There’s a better way to live.
RULE EIGHT
… for a Better Way to Live
Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busywork. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!