Saturday, Craig and I were driving behind an SUV on Delaware Route 1: the main artery along the coast. For some reason, I’m always reading automobile license tags, and this one said “RIGHT”. I wondered if this moniker was a commentary on the driver’s self-esteem, her politics, or perhaps she thought she might be either ‘Ms. Right’ or even ‘Ms. Right Now’. For some odd reason, it reminded me of the song that goes, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” Whether the tag referred to her choices or my choices or even your choices, I can be certain that, for every choice, there are some right options, there are some wrong ones, and still others are the ‘right now’ ones - the expedient ones.

Consider this: when you’re shopping for a gift, when do you buy the first thing you lay eyes on? Doesn’t that happen mainly when you’re rushed and out of time? And, as the famous Dr. Phil is fond of saying, “How’s that workin’ out for you?” The old timers used to say, “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.” Haste not only makes waste, it also makes you crazy. Although there’s almost always an expedient option, it’s almost never the best option and, if you think about it, it’s almost always the worst option, particularly for someone whose aim is to live a balanced life.

Here’s what you can expect from off-the-top-of-the head decisions: first, a mediocre (if that) quality choice; second, unforeseen consequences; third, an error cascade (a series of little issues that compound into a major catastrophe). You can expect eventually to be tossed randomly into a ‘crisis mode’ that will effect a broad spectrum of areas in your life. All this just from making an expedient choice.

Do you want some large-scale examples of expedient choices gone wrong? That’s a tough one, because there are so many examples to choose from! How about the earthquake in China that recently killed tens of thousands of people just because it was cheaper and easier to build substandard buildings? How about the billions of dollars we’ve been wasting in Iraq because of our involvement in an opportunistic and poorly-thought-out war? Those are just the big things. How much of your life has already run amok because of the expedient choices you’ve taken?

I don’t want to belabor the obvious. At the same time, it’s not natural to take time out of our busy schedules to plan, to gather data, to weigh risks, to build working relationships. It feels so much easier to ’shoot first and ask questions later.’ What will it take to convince us that consistent success comes only as a result of consistent planning? Certainly, everyone will occasionally experience a random success out of a crap shoot. Sometimes, we’ll also experience catastrophic failure in spite of careful planning (although we might question how ‘careful’ that planning might have been). The lesson we need to learn here comes down to this: if we want to live a balanced life, our goal must be to establish some consistency, repeatability, and (to the extent possible) predictability. All these things derive, not from expediency, but only from careful planning. You can decide right now to eschew expediency. Gesundheit!

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
ProActivation® Coaching
Website: http://www.ProActivation.com
E-Mail: info@ProActivation.com

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Copyright © 2008 H. Les Brown

Tags: balance, catastrophe, choice, consistency, error cascade, expediency, planning, Risk, anticipation

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