Doubt

It is so easy to get one with the drama of life and let the acts of the play sweep us away. We get so involved in the journey we forget to ever step back and see where we are. We keep forgetting the partner we have in this journey (be it God, Allah, spirit, or any other name) is bigger than any issue or problem in our lives. We've got the best confidant in the world and yet we forget to turn to the answers we carry with us.

We move directly into reaction about it all. One of my learnings at this point seems to be to stop and take a breath before I say anything. I'm much quieter than I was earlier in life. My responses are often silence.

It has been said one of the most insidious parts of our personal characteristics is doubt. Doubt is ever present. Years ago I did an exercise with a group of student leaders at our university. This was the cream of the crop bringing leadership skills and experience to the exercise.

We were given a situation that was a difficult problem to solve. We could choose the tools we wanted to help us. We chose the tools in two different ways. First individually and then also as part of the groupl

It was so interesting that the group was influenced by those who talked the most. Yet in the end during the de-briefing it was found often the ones who knew the most and made the best individual choices were not listened to by the group. Thus the group assumption was that if someone had a lot to say then they knew what they were talking about. Often the people with the most experience and information were the quieter participants.

Takes me down the entire road of trying to understand social influencers. Wait a minute, these are people who influence a bunch of other people by how they show up. It is not based on what they know. You might notice there have been some arrests and deaths among social influencers.

So I have a thought. What if we came with our own set of answers tailor-made just for us. The answers were available but it was up to us to look within for the answers. In the end the entire process is about slowing down to spend time delving within to find the ansswers. So slow down and see what you think. Gotcha!