3 Things to Get Rid of To Make Your Life Better
In a video Brant Hansen made, he shared 3 things you can get rid of that will make your life better, and let me just warn you now- these things might step on your toes a bit. We found them very eye-opening and helpful. We hope you do, too.
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry
I wanted to share with you 3 things you should totally get rid of and it will make your life better. The first is Dallas Willard’s idea. He said we should ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives. We don’t have to be this hurried. We just kind of program our lives that we have to be hurried, but we don’t have to. It’s not being busy, it’s being hurried…humans have always been busy. Dawn to dusk, lots of things to do just to feed the family, but it’s the hurry that we’re almost sick with in our culture. Here’s the problem- it actually makes you a different (and worse) person when you’re in a hurry. I’m not the same when I’m in a hurry. I’m shorter with people, I can get bitter and irritable and I don’t help- I’m not as apt to help. My judgment is off when you make a hurried decision- that’s not good. When we spend our life hurrying, we make a lot of bad decisions. We’re not able to have the margin to enjoy God. We become different people when we’re in a hurry and yet we’re all sick with hurry in our culture- I think he’s right.
No More Pet Peeves
The second thing, and this is from C.S. Lewis, I recommend getting rid of your pet peeve list. I can be a complainer by nature. I am highly critically minded, I would put it that way- too much so. But I have to stop it, because I want to guard my character. What Lewis said was that a little grumbling now- you can do it now and people will be like, “oh yeah, everyone has their pet peeves…” but if you give it license, over time you become more and more about that. He said a grumble here and there and eventually you become nothing but a grumble. You’re like a machine that just grumbles on forever- there’s no “you” really left. If you want to know what he’s talking about, look at a lot of the older people in our culture. There are some older people that are just incredibly sweet, like they’ve become more and more that way. They’ve guarded their character and they’ve become more and more what they meant to be. They are others-centered, they are kind, they are patient, they listen awesomely, they’re wonderful people. Then there are other older people, that are perhaps 70 or 80 years old and they are nothing but a complaint. It’s just, “I can’t believe this, I can’t believe that” and they’re the people at the grocery store that are ramming you with the grocery cart. You tend to fall into one of those two things because we become more and more of what we are. So, we have to guard the little things now so when it’s a little bit later, we’re not more and more that way. We can become a caricature of ourselves. Pet peeve lists, pet peeve lifestyle, complaining- get rid of it. It’s a very good idea for your soul.
“I can’t believe that!”
The third thing to get rid of, and I talked a lot about this in my book, “Unoffendable.” It’s the expectation that humans are somehow not going to be humans. We are shocked when people behave the way they behave. And we know it- we’ve been driving long enough to not be shocked when somebody cuts us off or when somebody doesn’t use their turn signal…we’re like, “I can’t believe this guy didn’t use his turn signal!” You can’t? Why? This is how humans have always been. Not just turn signals, but humans have been killing each other for bad reasons, just for selfishness, since the beginning of history. The first cave drawings- I just learned this like 6 months ago- are of human violence against each other. War and conflict and violence predate private property, agriculture, nation states…it’s just part of our humanness and it’s the flaw that we have. There’s something broken in us. What I want to do is have my expectations be realistic with the planet I actually live on, because I’m that way too. It’s good to remember, humans are humans, so I can be more patient with them and with me as well.
So, get rid of the expectation that humans won’t be humans, get rid of hurry which makes you a different person, and get rid of that pet peeve mentality before it’s too late and you become just a grumble going on forever, like Lewis said.
We hope some of this is helpful to you- We just wanted to share it with you.