Calling time on a situation
I think one of the TOUGHEST things in life is knowing when you've got to "CALL TIME" on a shit idea or situation. Because it requires a level of bravery to admit you're wrong, and start to move in a different direction.
We recently went on a road trip with the kids and decided to take a detour to see some caves. Google maps said it should take just over one hour each way.
Google Maps was WRONG!
It took us 2 1/2 hours each way and altogether added an additional 5 and a 1/2 hours to a little detour it was only supposed to take us a couple of hours MAX. This little detour was done in a rental car and we nearly missed the delivery time (which would've meant paying for an extra day's hire...)
Needless to say it made the whole drive incredibly stressful. There was no eye-spy or Kumbaya being sung, that's for sure. And when we got to the caves, we basically RAN through them so we could get back on the road again! (For the record - the recommended tour time was 45mins...we knocked it over in 25mins!)
The air was tense and it was not a fun blissful car trip we had envisioned.
What we should’ve done is called pulled the car over and turned around when we had been driving for 1 and a half hours and not yet arrived. After all that is what we had agreed to when we started the journey. But we were so committed to the outcome, even though it was fast becoming clear it was COMPLETELY UNREALISTIC.
But when you are running on the logic of "Well, we’ve come this far, it can’t be that much further we should just keep going", it becomes increasingly tough to CALL IT.
What we needed to do was to pull over to critically reassess where we were at and actually be brave enough to recognise that while we may have already driven for an hour and a half, it was okay to turn around and go back.
In other words it means admitting the following:
That the endeavour wasn’t a waste of time, we just learnt that it wasn’t the right path to take.
We do this so often in life.
We commit to an idea that we think is gonna work and then as we get further along we realise this idea might not be the best...
It takes courage and bravery to admit that you don’t always get it right and that you need to change course.
Sometimes it’s hard to admit to ourselves; sometimes it having to face frien
ds and loved ones.
But make no mistake, what can often be worse is the feeling of being trapped in a situation that you don’t want to be. Take the step. Make the tough call. Whether its ending a friendship, leaving a relationship, changing careers. Be brave enough to make the hard calls.
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