The Success Of Greener Grass

I am regularly amazed at the comments people make to me about what I get done as opposed to how.  Everyone has the same twenty-four hours, right?  So the question is how are you using you time I think. 

Perhaps it is the post Thanksgiving shopping spree, the people anxious to see their families only to get away as soon as possible, but if you want to get things done, show me where you spend your time.  That will tell me what you care about or if you just are fickle about your life and the people in it. 

First, I get things done because I have a “To Do” list for every day.  People joke about me scheduling time for this person or that, but the way I know I can spend time with people I care about is to pull time out of the schedule specifically for them.  It sounds like relationships are able to be scheduled and they are not, but when you don’t care enough about people to make them a schedule priority right next to picking up groceries or completing a chapter, you will not get tasks done. 

I do consider myself more people focused than task focused so when someone stopped by my bunkroom at work a few weeks ago to talk because they had something going on, I put down what I was doing so I could focus on what they needed done.  I focus on people, but I still had tasks to get done which meant I didn’t watch the football game later that day.  It’s a choice then of taking care of the person and their situation and getting back on the horse to finish the task list. 

It seems silly for some, but I hate watching people flit around trying to pursue twenty different things because they write down accomplishment lists after the fact instead of realistically planning what they need to get done.  They ultimately drop the five balls they are juggling in the air not because they can’t juggle, but because they can’t prioritize which one is allowed to be dropped.  They can have their success diaries post event, my diary is in ink before I start the day…know what you want to accomplish and go get it. 

The other version is people who say this professional goal or that is important to them and then the effort you see is less than one hundred percent, or less than ninety, or less than…  You know what I mean…EMTs who say I am going to go to paramedic school, but who never put in the hours to prep themselves for the next step, they don’t visit the local college programs, they just hope.  They wait on success to come to them as if it will find them and then they complain about other people being lucky when they complete the tasks they need to so they can be successful.  Odd.  It remind me of the quote by Thomas Edison, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”  Yes it does because success isn’t accidental.  It isn’t luck.  Step up to the plate or get out of the box.