Something You Can Hang Your Hat On-The Right In Wrong Choices
I was going through some old files yesterday and came across something I’d written down from a high school friend’s Facebook Page: “Sometimes the wrong choices lead us to the right places.” I know, at first glance you go, “That’s not right.” However, there was a reason I’d saved it and this message marinated in the back of my mind last night. Then this morning, it hit me. There’s a difference between making “bad” choices and making what are perceived as “wrong” choices at the time. Let me give you a couple of examples.
When I was in college, if you were dating at the time of graduation, the thought was you either got married or broke up. Well, I didn’t want to stop seeing this particular girl, so…we got engaged. Big mistake…HUGE! She was (and I imagine still is) a great girl, but her family never liked me. Her mother asked me when I was going to “give up this radio thing?” “Jenny’s” family ran a fruit shipping business out of South Texas and their vision for me was to take a “son-in-law job” with them-starting at the bottom and driving a fruit truck. No offense to ANYONE who does this, but I have enough trouble just driving my 4-wheel, Chevy truck. I’ve got no business doing that. And, I never would have been happy. Not only that, but I never would have married Debbie, and had this amazing life we share. All that being said, at the time, EVERYONE thought it was wrong for me to break an engagement a couple of months shy of the wedding (not to mention break Jenny’s heart like that).
Then, in late 2000, we left what is a RARE thing in our business…a job that was about as safe as it gets-in Augusta, Georgia. Beware of chasing greener grass-especially the kind you can deposit. It has a tendency to mask SERIOUS problems under the surface. For four years we worked our tails off in an awful situation for people who cared for us and our career like you cared for that Styrofoam coffee cup you just tossed. I tortured myself for a long time for making that “wrong” decision. Upon reflection though, that decision taught me humility. That decision taught me to care more for the right things than for “stuff,” and led us here to the Queen City and the most fun fulfillment we’ve ever had on the radio. And as an added bonus we’ve worked for and with people we now call family.
Think about the “wrong” decisions in your life you’ve yet to forgive yourself for. Now, think about the good to great that actually came about BECAUSE of those “wrong” decisions. And let the guilt go.
“Sometimes the wrong choices lead us to the right places.”
And that’s something you can hang your hat on.