Know your lane

Many of us spend our life or journey on earth running around, frustrated that most of our actions bear no fruit. We stretch ourselves thin and try and try, and yet we are often left empty and frustrated.

Meanwhile, next to us are people who seem to have made it out of thin air. This observation leaves us to wonder what we are missing. Are these people any different? If yes, how different? What do they know that we don’t? What can we do differently to be more like these successful people?

I spent most of my life wondering about this phenomenon since I lived it firsthand. My parents both came from a scarce background. My dad spent his childhood without a father or a mother. He moved from foster homes to foster homes. My mom, on the other hand, lost her father at age seven and spent her childhood as drop out of school and moving with her mother and her six siblings from one uncle’s or auntie’s house to the other.

Fast forward about sixty years later, my mother is left with no money saved or a retirement account except for her children as a safe harbor. My dad, on the other hand, became a self-sustain successful entrepreneur. He has enough money saved to survive without needing anyone’s financial support. He lives his life freely and doesn’t rely on any of his children to pay his bills.

This disparity of how two people could live in the same house, having come from similar backgrounds, and yet turn out entirely on an opposite spectrum of life has left me very confused for most of my childhood and adolescence. I watched my parents and wondered how people from similar chaotic backgrounds could turn out so differently and almost polar opposites of each other.

Upon profound observation, I noted that my dad is soft-spoken and easy-going. Most people enjoy his company. On the other hand, my mother spends her life working very hard. I have never seen anyone work as hard as my mother. From what I recall, she will be the last to go to bed and be the first to wake up to attend to her business. She barely eats or visits the doctor for any aches or pain. My dad worked his regular office hours, attended activities with us when he could, and spent time reading and watching the news and reading books. I don’t recall my dad visiting the doctors as often either, but I recall a few instances when he visited for minor concerns.

Today, my father travels and counsels people when they seek his advice. His children would have to schedule a time to talk with him or have him visit them. He is one of the happiest eighty-year-old that I know. Each time I speak with him, he always has funny or profound wisdom to share and mostly leaves me to wonder if I understood what he meant to communicate.

As I studied my parents closely, I noticed the significant difference in how each approaches life, its problems or challenges, and the people they interact with. I notice that my dad does not hold anything in. He is swift to let go of any harm or any offense anyone does against him. He speaks his mind often with little regard for what others think of him. I can tell that my dad clearly doesn’t focus on what people think of him because sometimes he will act wildly and leave people very confused, and often people will even gossip about him not too far from him. He will hear them and yet ignore to make any comment or even acknowledge people’s concerns with him. Soon after, the same people will be back to him for advice, and my dad would just genuinely advise them as if he didn’t hear them saying all the prejudiced comments about him. As a child, I thought my dad was selfish because he set rules for himself and never let anyone change his mind. He will assist people when asked, only if he can. He didn’t go out of his way to do anything. He didn’t jump through roofs to help people or to please anyone.

My mom, on the other hand, will spend hours helping people. Her family mostly comes to her for assistance, and she tries very hard to save and help everyone. She disregarded her health to support others. Today, my mom has many health issues. Most people that she helped don’t even bother to check on her. If anything, they still reach out to ask for more, and when she informs them that she does not have any money to support them, they get frustrated because they feel that she is still loaded with money and yet chooses not to help them. They should have realized that what my mom did was work hard on her business, earn the money to assist them without investing, and run out of money later. With the passing years, she ran out of stamina to continue her business, and with not enough strength to continue her business, she ran out of energy, and the money followed soon after.

My takeaway is that we need to sharpen our saw and put the most important things first before attending to the least important things, so the little things don’t take too much in the balance, as Stephen Covey stated in his book, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

If you live your life like my mom, you will run out of time and energy, and, at the end of the day, you will have nothing left to give to the world. However, when you live like my dad, not that I’m saying he is perfect, you will always have just the correct amount of reverse energy left to sustain the need of others continually.

My advice is that you need to have your principal and understand what you can control and leave things outside of your control alone. If you seek to fix everything, you will run yourself to the ground. Take care of yourself because if you are not in good health, you cannot help anyone. Know your lane. Understand that yesterday is gone, and you can do nothing about it other than learn what it taught you and move forward. Tomorrow is a mystery, and you have yet to learn what it holds or if you will even see it, as denoted in the movie Kung Fu Panda. Refrain from trying to sustain your breath or your life. Sustaining your life is God’s job. Stop wondering where your food will come from, as this is also God’s job. Stop worrying about what people will think or say about you. What people think is the people’s job. Just focus on today, enjoy the current moment and the people around you, and count your blessings. Stay committed and consistent with your endeavors.

My dad understood early on that not everyone would like him or be happy with his actions, and he made peace with that. My mom spent her life trying to make everyone happy, and, in the end, no one cared.

Remember that the only person you owe anything to is you and no one else.