Death, Taxes, And Overcorrection

Escape the cycle of burning it all down to start it all again.

Photo by Jeremy Thomas via Unsplash

“Okay. I don’t know what you’ve heard about me but I’m going to be running things from now on and there are going to be some major changes around here. Starting with, everything…”

We’ve all been there. Literally, figuratively.

Whether a new manager steps in, a new coach takes over, a new babysitter…a new “you”. The scorched earth approach seems to be the go-to power move.

New Year’s Resolutionists love this idea. They’re going to, with zero practice, change their entire lifestyle and/or identity. Stop all the bad, start all the good. They want to go from couch to 5k…overnight.

In the military — every time we get a new supervisor or a new commander at work, they want everything to change. Every. Single. Thing.

Rather than coming in and just being for a few weeks to get to know how everything works, they see certain things not working perfectly and come to the age-old conclusion that it’s all shit and all needs to go. Wasteful. Productivity falls off a cliff, morale is shot to hell. Tax dollars burned to boil water would’ve gotten more use. I’ve seen it so many times it’s depressing.

And politics. Oh, boy I don’t even want to include politics but they’re the poster niñas of burning everything to the ground. So focused on destroying what is or isn’t that they lose sight of what could be. Far-right to far left — the ideal? Well, that’s always somewhere in the middle.

In the past, I’ve done this with relationships. I’m guilty of letting small, seemingly minor annoyances chip away at me to the point that I truly believe that the only way forward is to completely remove myself from the situation because it has gotten completely out of control. I gave up.

Rather than strategically and methodically making minor tweaks along the way, we [humans] tend to sweep it under the ol’ rug until our only *choice* left is to burn the house down.

Life is a pendulum on wheels. Like a motorcycle or scooter. Like a unicycle…I think (I’m afraid to try). Overcorrecting on a two-wheeled vehicle is easily avoided — do your best along the way to not tip over. We don’t wait until the very last second to shift…