Remember when I said Embrace Grace?
The other day I wrote about grace, from the perspective of dealing with drama in a community.
My challenge to you was to assume the best in people, to live with the knowledge that you don't know the whole story, and to embrace grace.
And you do that. I know because I hear your stories. I read your emails and comments.
I love that about you.
But there's one person who needs grace more than anyone and you've not been giving it.
No, I don't have cameras in your house. I just know you. I know me.
Can I tell you a quick story?
When I was growing up, my dad created this little system to pay us to get good grades. But it was a bit different than most of the ways I heard parents do it.
See, he'd give us a quarter for an A, give us nothing for a B, and have us pay him for a C. He never even assumed there were rules for D's and F's. That's just my dad.
Now, if you are getting 8 grades in a quarter, the potential upside here, for a quarterly report, was $2.
Not much of a motivation, right?
No big prizes, nothing spectacular. Except, there was a twist.
For every sequential quarter where you got straight A's, you would double it.
So Freshman first quarter – the upside is $2. The upside for your last quarter as a Senior? $65,000.
But we never saw that. Because, you know, you're a kid who doesn't do that kind of math and make the sacrifices to pull straight A's all the way thru.
3 B's killed it for me.
But that's not the point of the story. The point of the story is that when I would get my report card, sometimes it would have an “A-” and that was like a warning that I might blow it.
Did you catch that? An “A-” in my house was the sign that some bad / negative dynamic was around the corner.
That's a pretty high bar for a kid. Any kid. And worse when money's on the line, right?
You know who needs grace?
You.
You've given everyone else all sorts of grace. You've bestowed on them the freedom for second chances. And third chances.
But the bar is high for you. Really high. The slightest misstep and you count yourself out.
You got an A-, heck a B, on something and you decided that it was time to walk away. To call it quits.
My friend Syed posted this tweet:
"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." – Alice Walker
— Syed Balkhi (@syedbalkhi) August 21, 2015
Are you like me?
I was chatting with Syed and jokingly he said, “I notice on your blog you had a week without posts…” and a year ago that would have thrown me into some deep existential quandary to ask myself why I hadn't written each and every single day.
My reply, after working hard to give myself grace, was, “Yup, had a big event here, and work was busy at the start of the week, but I'm back at it and will post again today.”
The person who needs grace the most is the person we are the hardest on: ourselves.
Whether it's blogging, product development, friendships, eating healthy, running, writing that book, or anything else – every day won't be perfect.
You're job is to get back into the swing of things and give yourself another chance.
So, now you know who needs grace. It's you.