Jolt! by Phil Cooke (whitelam books .TXT) 📕

In the process, we have sacrificed the pursuit of what is in our hearts. We find ourselves giving in to our doubts, and settling for what we know how to do, or can soon learn how to do, instead of pursuing what most matters to us and living with the adventure and anxiety that this requires. (1)

We live days and nights filled with activities that are ultimately unfulfilling. We have crammed our lives with to-do lists and yet aren’t accomplishing our dreams. We have goals but no great victory.

Much of this comes from the power of distractions—things that fill our time but leave us empty and cold. They give us the immediate feeling of accomplishment but keep us from experiencing authentic change.

In the book Good to Great, author Jim Collins wrote: “The real path to greatness, it turns out, requires simplicity and diligence. It requires clarity, not instant illumination. It demands each of us to focus on what is vital and to eliminate all of the extraneous distractions.”

» MOST OF US LIVE UNDER THE BONDAGE OF THE URGENT.

We have phone calls to return, appointments to reach, goals to achieve, meetings to get to, e-mails to answer, and reports to finish. Our days are filled with an unrelenting barrage of everything—all of which seems so important at the time. I have this “thing” about my e-mail in-box. There’s a little voice inside me that says, “You have to deal with every e-mail in your in-box by 5 p.m.” No matter how trivial, I’ll push aside writing a book, developing a great idea, or working on a significant project, just to get that e-mail cleared off. Because it’s in front of me, it seems like something I just have to finish.

This chapter is about spending less time on what we perceive to be urgent and more time on what really matters.

Let that thought sink in for a moment.

Most of the “urgent” things in our lives are really what other people consider important. Someone wants us to return his phone call, make an appointment, or respond to an e-mail. Look around you at this moment. Are most of the things that are crushing your life really that urgent to you, or are they things that other people consider urgent? I finally noticed that when I don’t deal with all my e-mails, the world doesn’t come to an end. In fact, I recently had a computer malfunction and lost my e-mails from the two previous days. Gone, deleted, erased, rubbed out, cancelled, obliterated, disappeared.

I was horrified. I was in the middle of a couple of big projects and had no idea who those e-mails were from or what they were about. Who did I need to get back to? What should I do? I had no idea.

I started shaking. I needed a “fix” for my e-mail habit.

But guess what? A day went by, and then another, and then another. Nothing happened. Not dealing with those e-mails had no impact at all. My world didn’t come crashing down, and my career didn’t end.

I realized those e-mails were “urgent” but not important.

Since that time, I’ve literally reevaluated my life based on that principle. I’ve made a concerted effort to eliminate as many distractions as possible in order to focus more effectively on what’s really important in my life.

How do we eliminate the real distractions?

First of all, understand which distractions do the most damage in your life. Distractions come in all shapes and sizes, from leisure activities like watching football on television, to personal issues from your past, to immediate challenges that disturb your life and pull vital resources and time away from what’s really important.

ELIMINATE DISTRACTIONS FROM YOUR PAST THROUGH FORGIVENESS

Over the years, I’ve heard thousands of protests.

“But Phil—you just don’t know what my father did to me.”

“When my partner sold my business, I lost everything.”

“I can never forgive that offense—it’s just too great.”

“As long as she never acknowledges fault, I can never forgive.”

“It’s just too difficult because the hurt goes too deep.”

There is nothing that cannot be forgiven. Forgiveness is the only real beginning to complete healing of yourself or a relationship. Keep in mind these important principles:

Forgiveness does not make what happened right.

By forgiving someone, you’re not saying that what was done to you never happened or wasn’t wrong. Evil is evil. When people are betrayed, wronged, or hurt in any way, the act of forgiveness doesn’t make what happened right or as though it never happened. What happened is still wrong. You’ve just made the decision to not let it gain control of your life. You are taking back your future and attempting to restore the relationship.

If the other person refuses to acknowledge what happened, or refuses to acknowledge that it was wrong, it still can and should be forgiven. Forgiveness doesn’t depend on the other person; it depends on you.

Forgiveness matters, even if the offending party refuses to admit guilt.

I know a woman who experienced horrible sexual abuse by her father for years. Because of an illness, her mother had grown weak, and, as a result, her father began preying on her for sexual gratification. Not only was it a devastating experience that continued until her teenage years, but since that time, her father has refused to admit guilt. In fact, part of her difficulty finding healing from the abuse is her father’s refusal to acknowledge that it happened at all. After finally running away from home, the woman went through a series of failed marriages, and it wasn’t until she experienced a spiritual transformation that she began the long road to healing from the years of abuse and neglect.

In the process of her healing, she realized that she needed to forgive her father. In spite of his refusal to take responsibility for those years of horrible cruelty, she made the difficult decision to forgive him. He continues to act as if nothing happened, but in spite of his refusal to