You Know It’s Time When…
In the course of a career, in the course of a relationship, in the course of our lives, there are times when we need to face up to the fact that things are not working. And in all such cases, it’s time to do something about it.
When we lie awake at night, the mind spinning like a vortex, idea tumbling over concept smashing into emotion, faces, images, anger, shame, dread, and fear chasing one another in an angry parade, it’s time.
When Friday night is our best night and Monday morning our worst morning, it’s time.
When our life is all about surviving until the next vacation, it’s time.
When we constantly have to juggle the demands of our job and the claims of our mate and our children, it’s time.
When we don’t know how we’re going to make our next payment, it’s time.
When we realize we can’t trust the people with whom we work, it’s time.
When we live in dread of our banker or the taxman, it’s time.
When we accidentally discover that our kids or our mate have been struggling with serious life issues for months and years, and we had no inkling, it’s time.
When we and our life partner treat each other with cold courtesy, or worse, it’s time.
When we wish we could re-wind the clock ten or twenty years, and start anew, it’s time.
When we cry inside because we know we are not the person the world thinks we are, it’s time.
When we come to understand that we are no longer able to function without supportive substances or behaviours, it’s time.
Sometimes it’s time to call it quits, sometimes it’s time to start all over again. Sometimes it’s time to re-chart our course, sometimes it’s time to screw up our courage and see things through. But in all cases, it’s time to be honest with ourselves and get to the bottom of the problem.
I’m a big believer in loyalty in relationships, and I believe in going the second mile, and the third. And sometimes we have to hang in because of our fiduciary duty toward a fragile business or life partner, parent or child. But the questions need to be asked and the principles analyzed. Sometimes duty demands that we sacrifice, but it’s also just as likely that the better welfare of both sides is found in going separate ways. Such decisions are painful, but necessary. Each is unique and special.
Sometimes we need to face up to the fact we’ve failed to enforce boundaries. Then we need to decide if it’s better to get sucked deeper into the quicksand, or deal with the risk of going separate ways if boundaries can’t be set and honoured.
Sometimes we need to accept that we have wasted years and dollars and sweat and tears and that we need to stop throwing good money after bad.
In these cases, and more, we need to stop pretending, stop wishful thinking, and stop hesitating. Nothing fixes itself. We need to be tough on ourselves, and frank about what we’ve let ourselves into. Only rarely do we have the right to blame others for the fix we find ourselves in– I got myself here, and it’s up to me to figure out how to get out.
It may well be that the slavery in which we find ourselves cannot be cured, so we need to learn coping mechanisms. But more likely, the horrible pit in which we find ourselves is something from which we can extricate ourselves, with help, and with a plan.
There are costs, high costs, to self-rescue, and we need to understand them before we set out on our quest for a better land. The costs are not only to ourselves, but to others.
Perhaps you are clever and strong enough to solve all your own life issues on your own. I am not. In the absence of honest and courageous counsel, if I act alone, I am bound to make things worse. At the very least, I need a shoulder upon which to lean. I suspect that I am the rule, not the exception.
No problem is ever solved until it is addressed and understood. No entrapment is ever escaped without courage and a plan. No journey is ever finished without a map and a trusted guide.
My job is to help professionals find a greater success and satisfaction. I’m no marriage counsellor or addiction advisor, but I’m always happy to lend a sympathetic ear and make common sense suggestions to any friend who calls.
And if it’s time for an analysis and plan for your professional life, that’s what I do.
Is it time?