I’m not sure who said that first but I know a guy who says it. I think he might know the guy who first said it. Or maybe he knows a guy who knew the guy.
(Tangent: This “knowing someone who knows someone” thing reminds me of something I remember my grandfather saying growing up, “Shake the hand that shook the hand of John L Sullivan.” Just thought of it right now. Memories are funny like that. Back to our regularly scheduled…)
It’s true. What you resist persists. You think that thing you’re avoiding disappears when you’re not actively avoiding it. But it doesn’t. Because you’re always actively avoiding it. The activity just happens to be occurring below the water line. It’s always sort of there, taking up space, drawing sustenance like a leach suctioned to the back of your knee.
Are you lacking energy from your experience these days? Sure, take a peek at what you’re doing. But make sure you do business with the stuff you’re avoiding. It could be an awkward (or so you anticipate) conversation you need to have. It could be trivial like changing your cable modem and service plan with Time Warner Cable.
For a couple months the cable modem my IT guys recommended I purchase lay at the foot of my desk in my home office. It just wanted to be plugged in so it could know the joy of an honest day’s work. But I wouldn’t call Time Warner to get it activated and upgrade my internet package. Not because it would be complicated because it wasn’t, at all. I didn’t want to call because I also wanted to cancel the TV portion of my subscription. I knew they weren’t going have any of that noise. Couple that with the fact that they are considered America’s most unloved company. So I kept putting it off to my own frustration. Every time my internet would buffer or Netflix would get all cattywampus I’d get a reminder of the persistence of my resistance. I finally made the call, changed out the modem (saving myself a monthly rental fee) and made the changes to my plan as described.
It turns out I’m actually an adult that can call a company and get things done.
You’re thinking, “Whoa, this kid’s messed up.” (I’ve been trying to tell you that for a couple years now but you didn’t want to believe me!)
The amount of satisfaction I received from pulling that off is epically pathetic. There’s no way it should have felt that good. It’s only because of my lengthy resistance that it had the power to feel that good to complete. On the persistence side, days after the call I still turned the corner to my desk expecting to see the modem in the on-deck circle. How’s that for the power of resistance?
Hopefully your resistance isn’t toward something as embarrassing as switching out your cable modem.
But I guarantee you’re resisting something.
(A conversation, to-do, promise…)
What are you committed to?
Can you afford to resist eliminating the inconsistencies that persist?
(“Thanks” to Paul Greiner for the inspiration)
