Getting better with every day – SCN Encourager 5/22/2013

What an awesome feeling! Growing in wisdom and maturity.

Last week’s Powerball millions? No, thank you. They’re all yours.

I’ve got something better – wisdom and maturity.

And all I have to do is keep growing older and rake them in.

I don’t have to worry about a frenetic sprint to a distant finish line, either. I’m talking about a day-by-day stroll through the calendar. It’s an amazing knowledge acquisition system (and it’s difficult to restrain my enthusiasm…).

AND – you can tap into its benefits, too.

All you’ve got to do is get through every one of your days and then at night after brushing your teeth just add it (the day, not your teeth…) into your “this day is done” deposit bank.

You’re now one day older, sure – but you’re also wiser, more experienced, and more mature. Facts are facts. At this moment in time, no middle schooler in any one of your classrooms nearby can claim to be older and have more experiences than you.

I wish I had discovered this system earlier – and had embraced the “aging process” with more gusto.

I now realize that if you get more mature and more experienced with every passing day, what a gift!

My past “a-ha moments” now mean nothing. This is my big “eureka” breakthrough!

Or at least it was, until I heard this Howard Hendricks quote on the radio.

A business owner (who sounded fairly young… rats!) said that this particular Howard Hendricks quote put the role of experience into the right perspective.

“Experience is a good teacher, but a better teacher is the evaluated experience.”

The business owner (this kid!) said that he now was taking the time to consider his experiences and interactions with others beyond categorizing them as good or bad… or just reacting to the experiences solely on emotion.

Once he (THIS KID!) scheduled a few minutes every day to evaluate his most meaningful experiences, he began to see his preferred outcomes increase all across the board, both personally and professionally.

Want to improve your results and understanding? According to the young business owner, invest in thinking about and evaluating what comes your way. After all, most of today’s experiences are something you helped shape awhile ago. The trick is to evaluate, not to worry. Learn from you.

This all makes sense, I suppose. The whipper-snapper’s probably right.

But I like my day-by-day “just grow older & pile up the experiences” system better.

Admit it. Despite its deficiencies, it requires less time and effort than the whole “thinking and evaluating” thing.

Tom Page, SCN