As a kid, my dad built a little tree house poised in the apple tree located in our backyard. It was a big event in our kid- crowded neighborhood. He painted it brown…same paint/color of our real house.
For whatever reason, I painted my best friend’, Jimmy C. hands with the same paint. It looked as though he had on a pair of brown gloves. I did a meticulous job and recall feeling a sense of pride that I’d not missed a spot.
In the end, neither of our moms’ liked it much.
I was about eight years old and I remember thinking it was a great idea. Of course, I was armed with only an eight year old’s information and reasoning. It didn’t know that house paint wasn’t made for skin. It didn’t occur to me that our moms’ would be so upset.
Although honestly, I did sneak- paint Jimmy’s hands while hiding along side our house. So, I probably sensed it might not be the best idea, but I did it anyway.
Once my mom took to unhappily cleaning up Jimmy’s hand with turpentine, I knew ,forsure. I’d made a poor choice.
I swear I’ve never painted another person’s hands with house paint again.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we learned all lessons this easily?
Say, we foolishly spent too much from one paycheck…wouldn’t it be great if we never spent foolishly again?
Or say, we drank too much and said stupid things. Wouldn’t it be great if ,after that , we swore off drinking to avoid humiliating ourselves again?
Perhaps we were once caught lying and afterwards vowed to tell the truth, no matter what.
Or we got involved in an unhealthy relationship and, having learned that lesson, we steadfastly considered each red flag in our next encounter.
Wow, theoretically…we’d all be living fantastic lives by the time a few years past!
We are all equipped with an inner GPS, a guiding system that absolutely tells us what is good or bad for us. Unfortunately, we often allow our ego to disarm our GPS and deny the truth. Denying that inner voice, that inbuilt GPS is how we repeatedly get ourselves into trouble.
What truth about your life are you currently ignoring?
