Tag: goals

Almost

My golf match wasn’t going well. Shots missed the green, and putts skimmed past the hole. Doing badly on the first four or five means you won’t win a tournament of just 18 holes. Conditions weren’t easy but neither were they difficult enough to prevent others turning in great scores. I wouldn’t be one of them. I kept trying, but it was hard to focus. What was the point? My last hole was better, but that couldn’t improve my overall total. I handed my card to the scorers knowing I’d be well down the field. I wasn’t. The winners were announced. I wasn’t one, but I was only one place, one shot, away from getting a prize. If I’d holed just one more putt, I could have won. ‘Why did I not concentrate more, and try to give every shot my very best?’ I asked myself. But I hadn’t, and had to accept the hard fact that I almost won.

Everyone has almost moments. They almost passed their driving test. They almost got a promotion. They almost proposed to the girl of their dreams. They almost ran the whole marathon distance. They almost caught the bus. They almost won the lottery. They almost completed the crossword. They almost got the grades for university admission. They almost bought the best mobile phone. You could say there’s almost no end to a list of almosts.

I’ve been reflecting on how common and how significant almost moments are in our lives. Some of those moments (even a golf match) are not really a big deal, but others have a deep and long-lasting effect on our lives. Here are some of my reflections around the word almost.

Almost can torture us

I heard a talk recently from an athlete who’d placed fourth in the Olympics. For years she’d prepared for those Olympics. She’d trained hard every day, sacrificed greatly, given her best, and she almost got a medal. But she never made it to the podium, nor are laurels hung round the neck of the person coming fourth. The pain of being so near and yet so far from recognised success hurt that athlete deeply.

Almost achieving does that to us. A friend almost finished his PhD, and for the rest of his professional life regretted his failure to complete. When my brother and I were very young our parents nearly signed up for a special deal for us all to emigrate to Australia or New Zealand. They almost signed up, but doubts brought the process to a halt. Though we had a good life in the UK, the ‘what if?’ questions never completely disappeared.

I see two lessons to counter those kinds of regret.

One is that plainly not everyone can come first (or second or third). Being near to success, but not winning, is everyone’s experience in some sphere. And not being first does not mean we’re failures. To come fourth in the Olympics proves you’re better than the vast majority of athletes, and you’re fitter and faster than 99.9% of the population. (More on not being first in a moment.)

The second lesson is that we mustn’t live life constantly looking over our shoulder to the past. Whatever we once did was based on the facts and feelings we had then. Now we must move on. Hindsight is cruel, tempting us to believe some other path would have been better. But we don’t know that. The only thing certain is the path actually followed through our lives. It’s important we make the best of that.

Life will always have almost moments

All we need is logic and modesty to realise we’ll never be first in everything on every occasion. Jack Nicklaus was a brilliant golfer from his youth onwards. Over his career he won 18 major championships, three more than Tiger Woods. Almost more remarkably, he was runner-up in 19 major championships, in five of which he lost only by one stroke or in a playoff (which takes place after a tied tournament). Nicklaus almost won twice as many majors than his enduring record total. How did he cope with so many disappointments? The answer is that he’d learned early on, before he turned professional, that he’d lose far more golf matches than he’d win. He was ready for those almost wins.

I’ve known people controlled by a deep need to come first. Some become bullies. Some become cheats. Most end up disappointed, frustrated, and sad that they haven’t fulfilled their potential. But very likely they did fulfil their potential; it’s just that ‘potential’ cannot be equated with being perfect, or better than everyone else.

No-one succeeds in everything. Many times we’ll do well, but just short of our very best or someone else’s very best. Life is filled with almost moments, and we must come to terms with that.

Nevertheless we should not easily settle for almost

After an almost moment, there’s no harm in asking ‘Why did I come up short?’ Perhaps you went for a job interview but you weren’t selected. It was an almost moment, and you’re disappointed and perhaps angry. Now you have three main options:

  1. Blame the interviewers for being mean or stupid. You know you were their perfect candidate, and they blew it. They asked the wrong questions. They misinterpreted your answers. They didn’t give you a chance to shine. They reached the wrong conclusion. Blame-casting like that is always a temptation because surely what happened couldn’t have been your fault. Think like that and you learn nothing. It’s utterly unproductive.
  2. Of course doing the opposite with blame – blaming yourself – isn’t productive either. We think: ‘I was too nervous; I stumbled over my words; I didn’t really answer their questions; I never put over my best qualities.’ Constructive self-criticism, recognising shortcomings or learning points is fine, but getting down on yourself generates negativity and pessimism which does nothing to improve performance next time.
  3. Recognise the almost moment as a near-success. You got an interview! That’s something many others did not get. You were close to being appointed. Okay, so what professional skill do you need to improve? Or what could someone teach you about interview performance? Or how might you prepare yourself better for next time? An almost experience is evidence of needing just one more step to reach the top of the stair.  

There’s much to be said for an almost moment providing we don’t see it as a disaster. Almost does not mean the world is against us, or that we’ve failed. Rather almost can be just birth pains before we emerge into an amazing new future.

Sometimes almost is actually good enough.

Perfect isn’t always necessary, and we can waste time and energy striving for it.

I was preparing a report for church members, and decided it would help to present it in a more attractive layout. Using my Apple IIe computer and Epson dot matrix printer[1] I set out text in column width. Step two was to cut out headlines from newspapers that seemed to fit each part of my report (‘Bold new start’, ‘Exciting possibilities’, ‘Better future’ and so on). I pasted the text and then the headlines on sheets of paper, making it look like a news report. Then I had all the pages photocopied. Though dot matrix printing could never look elegant, at least my report was better than plain text. Except it wasn’t really. I had taken about a day and a half to create that layout, and the church members just shrugged. They were only interested in what the report said. A neatly presented traditional report would have been almost as good, and certainly just as acceptable to the readership. And the almost as good would have saved me a mountain of work.

Perfection is not the only acceptable goal. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

Almost can mean we’re near to achieving our goals

Sticking to a healthy diet is an obvious requirement for maintaining the right weight. Those trying to lose weight will often adopt a severely restricted diet to shed weight quickly. The problem is that crash diets can leave people feeling hungry, and hunger tempts them to cheat on the diet. And once they’ve slipped, many give up, saying “I can’t do this”.

I’ve done the equivalent when resolving to tidy everything in my home office. For several days I put everything away neatly. Then comes a super busy day, and perhaps another two after that. I didn’t tidy up and now I think I’ll never keep up so I give up, and settle for muddling along.

But the reality is that what we can almost achieve is evidence that we’re not far off from what we want to achieve. We shouldn’t be discouraged. We may have to change our approach, but we can get there. Yes, we slip up, but coming close shows those goals are possible for us. The exasperated phrase “I can never do this” isn’t true. We can. The best things in life require perseverance, and our almost achievements are evidence that we’re not far away from those best things.

Almost can be a good miss

Most of us will remember times when we almost made a bad mistake, but we didn’t. I almost added on two years of university study in my twenties because I’d become fascinated by philosophy, and was sorely tempted to catch up on philosophy courses I’d missed. Thankfully a friend counselled me to stick to my core studies and not lose time. He was right. If I’d deviated, I would have given myself big problems, some financial, some relational, some affecting my career.

Other people have stories about almost investing in a scheme which turned out to be a scam. Or almost reaching a road junction where a driver coming from a side road failed to stop; being at the junction just one or two seconds earlier would have meant a collision. Or almost buying something they found much cheaper later in the day. Or almost marrying someone, realising later what a mistake that would have been.

There are countless times a decision almost made would have been the wrong decision. We should be very thankful for what we almost did, but in fact didn’t.

Almost too late moments are, happily, just in time moments

On the spur of the moment, I put a question to my 79-year-old Dad: “Is there anywhere you’ve always wanted to go?” His immediate answer was “I’ve always wanted to see the Canadian Rockies”. “Then let’s do it” I said. Three months later we were on a plane to Canada.

My Dad’s only previous experience of air travel was the one hour flight from Edinburgh to London. Now we had begun our long journey over the Atlantic. We were half an hour into the flight when he asked, “Are we nearly there yet?” I had to explain that there were several hours to go. But – in mid-Atlantic – we had a happy interruption. One of the cabin crew leaned forward and whispered, “Would you two gentlemen like to visit the Captain on the flight deck?”[2] Of course we said yes, and a minute later we were standing right behind the pilot and co-pilot. We stared out through the cockpit to the clouds, and felt almost overwhelmed by the array of dials and controls before us. I was thrilled, and my Dad doubly so because he had been in the Royal Signals regiment during World War II so understood the fundamentals of radio traffic. He enjoyed a conversation with both pilots about how messages were transmitted, and about how navigation worked.

We arrived safely in Toronto, and our few days there included a visit to the nearby Niagara Falls. Then we were back in a plane, this time flying right across Canada to Vancouver. There we rented a car and I drove Dad on a lengthy but thrilling trip through the Rocky Mountains. We were dazzled by high snow-covered mountains, amazed to stand on a glacier, impressed by the dark waters of deep lakes, and watchful for bears crossing our path. Dad returned home excited and full of stories to tell his pals. Three months later I got the phone call no-one wants. Dad had been found dead. He hadn’t turned up for his regular golf game, so his friends, with police help, broke into Dad’s house and found him on the floor. He’d suffered a massive heart attack. It was so sad to lose him. But I had one very special comfort. The trip to the Rockies was almost too late, but in fact we’d done it just in time.

It’s often true that almost too late is not too late. To tell someone you love them. To mend a relationship. To live an experience. To achieve a goal. To accomplish a long-cherished goal. While you still can, don’t settle for almost but go ahead and achieve what you’ve always wanted.

[1] For younger readers, here’s how dot matrix printers work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_matrix_printing),

[2] An invitation that would never be offered to anyone now.

How do we make our biggest decisions?

We don’t make many really big decisions during our lives. But we do make some. Whether we’ll share our life with someone, and who that will be. Which career we’ll follow. What we believe. Our lifestyle choices. Whether we’ll have children. How we care for our health.

Matters like these are not the routine decisions of life. They’re not about choosing coffee or tea, or whether to call a friend for a chat, or if we’ll take the afternoon off to play golf, or should we take home a Pepperoni pizza or a Hawaiian pizza. We’ll probably make ordinary decisions 20 or 30 times every day, but in the whole of our lifetimes we’ll likely make less than ten major, life-changing decisions. Mostly our routine choices don’t matter significantly, but our big decisions affect everything about our lives, and maybe the lives of others too.

Here are eight principles I’ve kept in mind when making such decisions.

Principle 1  You have more time than you think

Alison and I have been house buyers several times. Early on in most of our searches we’ve found a dream house, only to be told other buyers are interested, and we need to make an immediate offer. We’ve wished we could. There can never be another house as good as this one. But circumstances prevented us acting quickly. The perfect house was sold to someone else. However, happily, later on we’ve found another house, far more perfect for us, and we were able to buy that. Those later choices were great homes for us and our family.

That’s just one kind of circumstance when people feel they must decide quickly but the early choice wouldn’t have been the right choice. There are moments for fast action, but they’re unusual. Mostly the biggest of decisions rarely need to be rushed.

Add to that an obvious truth: the bigger the decision, the greater the catastrophe if we get it wrong. The more important something is, the more time and consideration it deserves. Don’t ne hasty.

Principle 2  Don’t confuse small decisions with big decisions

Your new friends, Mary and Joe, are coming for dinner. ‘Should I serve steak?’ you ask yourself. ‘Or how about a casserole?’ Next day: ‘Perhaps they’d like fish?’ Next day: ‘What about lamb chops?’ Eventually there are ten different options, but finally one is chosen. But is it really the right one? As the day gets nearer the stress level rises, tempers get frayed, and you wish you’d never invited Joe and Mary for dinner.

What’s gone wrong here? Put simply, all the options were good. There was no ‘right one’. Mary and Joe are thrilled you’ve invited them for dinner, and as long as you don’t poison them they’ll go away believing they’ve had a lovely evening. That’s all that really mattered.

Too easily we promote ordinary decisions into matters of high importance. Alison and I now resolve a lot of things by simply asking one question: ‘Is this decision life-changing?’ Ninety nine per cent of the time what we’re considering isn’t a big deal at all. So, we make the best decision we can and get on with the things that matter much more. That works well for us.

So, second principle: Be realistic about what’s really important.

Principle 3  Think whether your decision is based on facts or feelings

If we’re making decisions about people, then of course feelings will greatly affect our choice. That’s entirely appropriate.

But emotions can intrude where they don’t belong, or at least shouldn’t dominate our decision-making. Here are two imaginary examples.

  • If we had rushed to buy a house, we’d have done it on superficial impressions and emotional reactions, such as ‘How wonderful it looks’ or ‘What a pretty area it’s in’ or ‘I’ve fallen in love with this property’. But, after moving in, we might have found roof problems, drainage problems, boiler problems, flooding problems. In fact, there could have been so many problems we’d have realised the real value of the house was about half of what we’d paid. Falling in love with a property can mean we skip the research a responsible house-buyer should always do.
  • A job is advertised I’d long to have. The post would give me a fifty per cent salary boost, a shorter commute, and an array of fringe benefits. I’m great at interviews, and I exaggerate my skills and experience. Wonderful – I get the job. What I never studied is what the work would entail: much longer hours; boring tasks; complex issues I don’t know how to resolve. Within weeks it’s obvious to me and to my bosses I’m out of my depth. I hate the job, and with encouragement from management I resign. Longing and ambition propelled me into that job, but I never assessed what doing that work would be like. A costly, painful mistake.

The bigger the decision, the greater the need to think through all relevant issues. Emotions or longings can be like a tide that sweeps us along, not necessarily in the right direction.

Principle 4  Push doors gently

I’ve known many people so driven by desire or ambition, they don’t probe opportunities carefully. They rush forward headlong. Instead of pushing doors gently, they kick them down and march through. Almost always that’s unwise.

There are two opposite temptations when faced with a big decision. One is to be so nervous we never act. The other is to be so determined, we plough forward ignoring any dangers. Determination is a quality, except when it controls all our thinking.

I read the story of Sally who got into serious financial trouble with an unwise investment. She’d been told that if she’d buy shares immediately in a new start-up, within weeks she’d be a wealthy woman. She cashed in all her savings and then borrowed even more, and bought the shares. For a few days they soared in value, so Sally took out another loan and invested that as well. Two weeks later the start-up failed. It declared bankruptcy. Sally’s shares were worthless, her money completely gone. All Sally was left with was a debt it would take many years to clear. A friend asked Sally why she had not sought advice from a qualified financial advisor. Sally’s answer: “I was so sure I was investing in a winner, I didn’t want anyone to talk me out of it”. That was a very expensive mistake.

At times the temptation to fulfil an ambition is so high we won’t let anything stand in our way. Frankly, that’s about as sensible as imagining that running fast through a minefield lessens the chances of being blown up.

Move forward, but don’t rush.

Principle 5  Where you excel may be a guide to what you should do

What I’m about to write under this heading is an imperfect guide to rightness, but should nevertheless have a place in our thinking.

In short, I’d encourage you to consider what you can do that most others can’t, because, at least in part, that’ll guide you towards a right decision.

Here’s a little of my story. My career beginnings were in journalism. After training – including shorthand and typing(!) – I was a reporter for The Scotsman and a sub-editor for its Edinburgh daytime paper the Evening News. I was a good journalist, reporting on important stories and trusted to cover late-breaking news just before the presses rolled. I enjoyed the work, and imagined a wonderful career in journalism.

Then Christian faith came alive in me in a way it had never been real before. I handed my life and my career over to God. It seemed to me that being a Christian in the world of journalism was important. But before too long I realised it wasn’t right for me.

Two factors helped me see that. The first, and certainly the most important, was a growing sense of calling into Christian ministry. How I sensed that is complicated and personal. Put simply, I felt that calling was God’s will for my life. And the one thing you can’t say to God is ‘No, I won’t do that!’

The other factor is more mundane but not unimportant. I was a good journalist, but alongside me were some great journalists. Not all my colleagues were great, of course, but a few were truly brilliant writers. By then, I’d begun to do some preaching and found a gift I’d never imagined I had. I worked hard at preparing sermons, and then words flowed in front of a congregation. People were challenged and helped. Churches asked me to return and preach again. I’d found that I didn’t have a unique contribution to make to journalism, but did have one to make to Christian ministry. And that’s what I dedicated my life to doing.

I’m cautious about saying ‘Do what you’re best at’ because it’s possible to be very good at doing something very wrong. History has plenty examples of bad people doing bad things brilliantly.

So, finding what you’re near-uniquely gifted at doing isn’t an infallible guide, but it can be a pointer in the right direction.

Principle 6  Take account of how others are affected by your decisions

For many years the city of Aberdeen, in the north east of Scotland, has been the European capital of the oil industry. The city is not large but its airport is one of the busiest in the whole UK, its numbers boosted by dozens of helicopter flights to and from North Sea oil rigs. Among the employed members of the Aberdeen church where I was senior pastor, about two-thirds owed their jobs to oil.

One consequence was that many who joined the church moved on after about three years. They didn’t leave for another church; they were sent elsewhere by their oil-related employer. Management would be moved to another administrative office and engineers to a new location of oil exploration. All of them made it clear to me that they couldn’t refuse. Following their careers meant being at the disposal of their companies. They could be sent anywhere, even to the other side of the world. (Years later I was in Indonesia and visited former church members by then living in Jakarta.)

But here’s my point. These changes didn’t affect only the employee. They had a profound effect also on spouses and children. Each transition meant ending relationships not long formed. They’d form new bonds somewhere else, yet always knowing they’d soon have to let those go too. I felt especially for the children who constantly changed schools and lost friends.

Alison and I made only one major move while our children were young. It was challenging for them. There were times of tears. Thankfully we stayed in the new place for many years, which did allow them to form long-term friendships.

Faced with major decisions, it’s thoughtful and loving to ask: ‘Who will pay the biggest price for this choice?’ Often the cost will not be borne by the one making that choice.

Principle 7  Let trusted friends advise you

In November 2021 I wrote this in a blog post on ‘Friendships’:

I took a deep breath, then asked a question no friend expects. Tom’s answer could affect the rest of my life. ‘I’m planning to ask Alison to marry me. You know both of us well. Am I doing the right thing?’

Tom looked startled. He’d never imagined being asked such a question. But he didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course you’re doing the right thing. You should have asked her ages ago.’

I laughed, feeling grateful and relieved in equal measure. I wasn’t inviting Tom to make my marriage decision for me, but as a deep and close friend his support meant a lot. 

Thankfully Alison said ‘yes’ and, as well as being my wife, she’s been the closest friend of my whole life. But Tom probably came next. Sadly, Tom died several years ago but he knew me through and through, and I’d have trusted him with my life. (https://occasionallywise.com/2021/11/06/a-question-no-friend-expects/)

A real friend, someone you’d trust through and through, is a wonderful resource when faced with a major decision. A truth I’ve learned is this: ‘Someone who loves you only a little will tell you what you want to hear; someone who loves you a lot will risk telling you what you don’t want to hear’.

Principle 8  Stay true to your ultimate values and goals

This principle should underpin all the others. What matters, what really matters, the most for us? When we know the answer to that – our values and goals – we have a guide for all our big decisions.

  • Is this how I should be spending a large sum of money?
  • Is this relationship one that I’ll always value?
  • Is this choice taking me toward or away from my life goals?
  • Does this behaviour fit with my deepest values?

An old idea is that all of us have a certain amount of treasure, and we should spend it wisely. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. What we’ve spent will never be replaced. It would be sad to get near to life’s end and to realise we’d frittered away our treasure on things that haven’t had value.

Every time we make a big decision we spend treasure. Each decision, therefore, should fit with our very most important values and goals.

Closing

My last word here is that we should realise it’s a privilege to have choices at all. Many people in the world have few choices other than to work in the fields or sell in the market in hope of earning enough money to buy food for just that day. If we have options far greater than those, that’s an enormous privilege. May our biggest decisions be made thoughtfully, wisely, and bring great benefit to us and to others.

Yesterday is yesterday

When I started school, among many things I didn’t understand was why my desk had a hole. It was a perfectly round hole, nearly three inches across, in the top right corner.

I didn’t know what that hole was for until, three years later, the teacher came to each of our 42 desks and placed a black cup into the hole. She filled each cup with ink, and laid a pen and paper on our desks. The pen wasn’t a ball-point or fountain pen, just a shaped wooden shaft with a stylus on the end. She told us to dip the stylus in the ink, and then write on the paper. The ink quickly ran out so after each short sentence we had to dip our pens in the ink again. Writing was slow, and very, very messy.

We practised with ink and stylus for a year, and then our suffering ended. Why? Because someone realised this was a complete waste of time because ball-point pens and fountain pens were common by then. There must have been virtually no-one who dipped a stylus-only pen in and out of a reservoir of ink. Those days were gone.

Two other glaring instances of ‘persevering when the day is past’ stand out.

Typewriters    Part of my training for journalism was typing. I practised the drills and learned to touch type. Every finger except the left thumb was used, and soon I had no need to look at the keyboard. It’s a skill I still use today.

But that skill tempted me into my last, longest and least pleasurable experience with a typewriter. I made the brave but foolish decision to type my own doctoral thesis. As well as being 436 pages long, each of which had to be letter perfect, there were two special difficulties: a) much of the argument involved New Testament Greek, so I had to type each page leaving spaces to handwrite Greek into the gaps; b) I decided to create footnotes which, with a typewriter, requires calculating in advance the number of lines needed for that page’s footnotes so you could stop the main text with exactly enough space for the footnotes. My worst ever page to type had only two lines of main text and over 40 lines of a footnote. I lost count how many times I retyped that page. Almost every page was typed at least three times, but some pages many more than that.

Every page was typed on a small, portable electric typewriter. It was important that the margins didn’t change so I glued their settings in place. That typewriter lasted just long enough for me to finish. What a relief!

And then – then! – I bought my first computer (an Apple IIe). If only earlier. If I’d had a word processor before typing the thesis it would have calculated automatically the space needed for each page’s footnotes and every error would have been corrected before printing out. But I had stuck with my faithful old typewriter and made my life very difficult.

Typewriter manufacturers fought the good fight to keep their products selling after computer word processors became affordable. They gave them small memories so the typist had a chance to correct a mis-typing before the keys struck the paper. And they developed ‘golf ball’ typewriters which had no keys, just a super-fast spinning ball which struck the paper with exactly the same force every time ridding the script of light and dark letters. But no innovation could save the typewriter. The more that manufacturers churned out typewriters the more money they lost. The days of the typewriter were over.

Digital photography    As I understand it a Kodak engineer invented a digital camera in 1975. But Kodak made its money selling film, so did nothing with the idea. Other firms developed digital photography, while Kodak still tried to sell film. The giant of a former era of photography filed for bankruptcy in 2012. Film cameras still exist but only for a niche market. Film’s days are gone.

Those two examples could be multiplied. Most of us are slow to recognise when big change is happening around us, and even when we do we’re slow to let go of what’s familiar.

I’ll set down four categories where we’re ‘guilty’ of that. Some concern what’s happening in the world around us but all of them also touch on our internal reactions to change.

1. When we see change but don’t realise its significance

That would be true for Kodak and typewriter manufacturers. Some have said Kodak’s leadership thought they were in the photographic film business whereas they were really in the imaging business. That mistake imprisoned them in doing what they’d always done. Something the same happened with typewriters. Their manufacturers thought all the public wanted was better typewriters, not recognising that the disruptive technology of word processors would make their products permanently obsolete.

We think their mistakes were glaring failures to recognise new needs and opportunities. But at the time it wouldn’t have seemed like that to the CEO of Kodak or a typewriter manufacturer, someone immersed for years in one line of business and thinking all they needed to do was improve the product and raise the marketing budget. And, with no expertise in digital cameras or word processors, it’s not so surprising they shied away from what they didn’t understand or think important.

Many shun what they don’t understand or doubt. It happens with viruses and vaccines. With being told to abandon our petrol or diesel cars. With giving up the office for working from home. With radical changes to diet to counter obesity, diabetes and heart disease. What disturbs us frightens us, and we may react by denying the need to change.

2. When we don’t recognise a goal is unachievable

It happens in sport, in entertainment, in politics, with those chasing career promotion or, sadly, with those pursuing a significant personal relationship.

For every top golfer who is winning millions on a professional tour, there are tens of thousands slogging away in near poverty but still hoping that one day they’ll break through. And thousands of musicians borrowing small fortunes to produce professional standard videos believing that’ll give them a break in the pop world. And politicians aiming to run the country, but never getting further than the lowest level of local council work. Also millions working all hours at great cost to family life and personal health to climb the corporate ladder but never getting there. And the many women and some men I’ve counselled who want companionship and probably marriage, to love and be loved, but year after year it doesn’t happen.

My pain for that last group is as nothing compared to the pain they feel. And I’d never counsel anyone to close down their feelings. But, for those in other categories, there is a case for a reality check and accepting the goal that drove them on will never be achieved.

Arthur reached very high levels in one of the major oil-related companies. The work had been super-demanding, but very financially rewarding. Soon after he passed his 50th birthday, Arthur told me that if you hadn’t reached the top by age 50 in his line of business you’d never get there. He knew now his career goal was out of reach. Soon after he was offered a ‘package’ to leave. Once that’s offered, staying isn’t really an option. He accepted the deal, retired, and filled his life with voluntary work that fulfilled him, and at last he was able to give time to his wife and family.

3. When we don’t see or accept that something is over

Two blogs ago (‘Values and friendship’) I described a day out in my early 20s with then girlfriend Kate. On long drives I realised I was having to think up subjects for us to talk about. That was stressful. I wrote: ‘Warning bells rang, and the relationship with Kate gradually came to an end’. That was true. But that gradual ending actually took six months. Those extra months were not good for either of us. We should have recognised reality and ended the relationship earlier.

Many small and large things in our lives won’t work out. The only shame in that is when we won’t let them go.

Here is a little ancient wisdom from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible:

There is a time for everything,
    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up

These are selected verses from a longer list in Ecclesiastes chapter 3. Their message is that we need wisdom to know when to start, and wisdom to know when to stop.

4. When we can’t let go of our past

This is different from the earlier subjects, because it focuses on our internal feelings.

With people I’ve counselled, two things are often said:

  • I can never be different
  • I can never forgive myself

The first of these – the thought they could never change – imprisoned some. Usually they believed they could never escape their background. Perhaps been abused physically and/or sexually as children. Perhaps developed damaging and dangerous habits related to smoking, drinking, drugs. Perhaps grew up in an economically challenged area, with no opportunity or expectation other than drudgery, hard work and an early grave. Or perhaps been raised in such a privileged environment that later on they couldn’t relate to anyone from any other background.

The challenge for these folk was believing – really believing – it was possible to be different. That the old was yesterday and the new is today and those ‘days’ won’t be the same.

Not for a moment did I ever suggest that was easy. And very few changed overnight, so my ‘yesterday’ and ‘today’ statement shouldn’t be taken literally. But a new beginning really is possible. I’ve seen it happen with people from their teens through middle age to old age. The grip of what controls us can be broken.

The second statement – that they can’t forgive themselves – is a curious one. Why curious? Because often the full version is: ‘I know God can forgive me, but I can never forgive myself’. The cheating spouse can’t let go of their guilt for such an enormous betrayal. Or the exam cheat is dogged by knowing they didn’t deserve their degree, their job, their salary. God says they’re forgiven, but they can’t accept it.

I’ve never been a priest (just as well since I have a wife and four children) but have acted in a priestly way for some tortured by their past failings. They’ve told me exactly what they did (confession) and how they don’t live like that now (repentance). I’ve been able to assure them of God’s forgiveness and tell them his will now is that they release their guilt burden and live with no sense of condemnation (restoration/renewal). God has cast their sins into the deepest sea and erected a sign saying ‘No fishing’. Truly ‘the old has gone, the new is here!’ (2 Corinthians 5:17) Not all have found peace, but, with help, many have.

For every person who ever breathed, there have been days which were good and days which were bad. But those days are gone now. I sometimes tell myself that past things have drifted down river and round a bend, and they’ll never flow upstream back to me. Today is a new day. A good day. And there are better things to do than grieve over my old typewriter, film camera, unfulfilled goals, or past sins. Yesterday is yesterday.