Things I CAN’T do no matter how hard I try:
- Be a professional NBA basketball player
- Pluck my eyebrows perfectly evenly
- See the hidden picture in those 3-D art posters
- Guarantee that my cancer will never come back
I didn’t try very hard to be a basketball player, not even of the peewee team variety. I DID try really hard to see the 3-D pictures. I even had one hanging on my wall for years that was supposedly of dolphins jumping out of the water. But nope, I couldn’t do it, because I’d had surgery that snipped my eye muscle as a kid, so I couldn’t focus right to do it.
After 2 frustrating years of all my friends being able to see it, I complained to my mom and told her I was just gonna throw the picture away.
“OK, you can,” she agreed. “But… it’s still really pretty even if you can’t find the dolphins. I like the colors.”
I ended up keeping that picture on the wall until I redecorated my room 8 months later. I never did see the dolphins, but once I stopped banging my head against the brick wall, I was at least able to enjoy it for what it was.
And that lesson has served me well over and over again. As soon as I let go of chasing a dead end goal, I’m able to refocus on something else. And that something else typically turns out more successful in the long run.
The brick wall keeps you from seeing what else is possible. Kinda like my eye surgery kept me from seeing the 3-D image, when you’re busy staring at that brick wall you can’t notice any other options.
