Doors Open and Close: Trust the Process

Several years ago, as I sat with my youngest, six years old at the time, on a beautiful Fall morning, in our favorite donut shop - I began to explain to him that our dear friend, Steve, was going to be coming down to visit us that weekend. Through bites of his Shipley's chocolate footlong, he sporadically gave indications that he was interested in my conversation.

I laid out that my friend was going through a really tough time and that he needed the opportunity with us to "clear his mind and heart." Even if it was just for the weekend, that is what we were going to help him do. With a bit of cream filling on his cheek he asked, "What's wrong with him and why does he need to come here to fix it?" His forehead scrunched in a thought that didn't quite connect for him, but all the while never taking his eyes off of his cream-filled delicacy.

"Well, he had a girlfriend that was going to be his wife pretty soon....." He cut me off, wide eyed, "WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?!" shouting through the small donut shop. "Did she die?!" I couldn't help but giggle and then quickly realized he might just be seriously concerned about her well-being. "No, buddy, she didn't. BUT..." he began to open his donut filled mouth again, ".... she broke everything off with him and he's pretty torn up about it."

My youngest is usually very caring and understanding, so when his jaw dropped and his eye brows pierced the tops of his eye lids, I was certain he was going to respond with an, "awww.. Poor Steve...." Oh, this was not his reaction in the slightest.... With a look of utter disdain he proclaimed.. "SO?! She just broke up with him? Does he not know there are other girls that will like him......?"

Shocked at the reaction and the words that followed, I drew a breath to begin to attempt to explain the complexity of my friends heartbreak...... The six year old wasn't done with his life advice and the best was yet to come.

"Steve just needs to get over it. He will be fine! That simple......"

I sat there for a second, baffled at this beautifully simplistic response to a very complex situation. In his mind, the solution was simple; ".....just get over it..." Expanding from simplistic to complex - this is tough, but this will surely pass. There will be other opportunities for love. Just so happens the timing wasn't right and that God had a different plan that was outside of Steve's plan.

By saying, "just get over it...." my six year old was magnificently stating, TRUST THE PROCESS. Just in very different verbiage. What he didn't know, what I didn't know and, most certainly, what Steve didn't know, was that HE was absolutely right.

Steve, if you're concerned for him as you're reading this, survived. He came down that weekend and we gave him a bang-up, good time that we most certainly wouldn't forget. He even laughed a bit. The boys hugged on him and I'm certain my six year old boyle dropped that same pearl of wisdom in his lap.

You know what? Steve did get over it. He moved on. He trusted that a new day would come that would prove that wasn't the right person for him. Time would show that to be 100% accurate, because in a few short weeks he will be marrying the love of his life.

Side-bar: I am fortunate enough to be the Best Man at his wedding.

This story, Steve's story and my son's reaction, was on my mind for the last several days. The process? It kept ringing through my muddled brain and I couldn't shake it. So often I know I rush - I get impatient when I want something. I don't always see path through the trees because I'm too busy looking at the forest. It's so easy to want to skip ahead, jump as many steps forward as humanly possible to get to our end result.

I know I'm guilty of this when it comes to my workout. I have this goal of where I want to be in the next year; my weight, my body comp, the eye test, all of it. I can see it in my minds eye and it fires me up, I get charged up to be that image in my head and I forget it's a long, dedicated, highly disciplined process. But damn all of that! I want it right now!

The issue is that if I skip step D then I will surely never land on step Z. Even worse, dancing past those steps will set me back and that end goal will slide further and further out of my grasp. So, as it's already been stated, I have to, "just get over it...." and TRUST THE PROCESS!

We all find ourselves at that crossroad of change. Whether it's an example like my buddy Steve, or whether you're looking right down the barrel at a potential career change; you will find that it will move more slowly at times than you want. There will be days where you can't stand it and want to throw your metaphorical and literal hands in the air and shout every swear word you can think of.. THAT IS OK!! That is NORMAL!

It's preferred, in fact, to allow those emotions to wash over you at times, because, damn it, it's hard! Life is hard and there is no manual for what is going to make YOU happy, wealthy or healthy. If we're lucky, we get all of those things, but they seemingly come in chunks at a time, if at all.

Being angry is a part of any process. Stewing and stagnating in that portion of it is not acceptable, however.

We have to find a way to let it go - connect with something or someone. Find your YOU time to re-calibrate the motor and start again. You will do this time and time again and even more-so depending on the journey you find yourself on. Dusting off is ALSO a part of the steps, part of the adventure. Have faith in it, enjoy it, because it will never happen the same again.

Don't not buy that prissy, fluffy cloud nonsense that when it's right it will be "happily every after..." No, No. When you hit that moment of change, my friend, that is when the work JUST begins. Motivation is going to come and go, for days and weeks, even, at a time. The WANT will lead to bouts of depression, anxiety and frustration. It will even hurt. If it doesn't then, realistically speaking, you're probably not trying hard enough.

But this is where you must persist. You must stay the course, stay persistent and fight like hell to hold on because the "haters", the detractors, the doubters, the know-it-alls, the academics, the religious, the secular... Oh, they're all going to come at you. Good. Let em. But TRUST THE PROCESS.

Most recently, I was speaking with a very close family member about my hopes and my goals for this blog and everything else that I'm building from this foundation. For someone that usually has much to say about many things, they were silent. Not completely non-responsive, but not engaged as much as I had hoped. I rambled on about where I want this to go and how I hope it can help in some way, even with all of my scrambled thoughts. Still, not much in the way of reciprocation.

I finally had to ask what the deal was with the lack of input. The answer was honest and direct - not easy to hear, but I appreciated the candidness of their concern. There was doubt in my process and the sincerity of where all of these ambitions were coming from. It's not that this person doesn't believe in me, far from that, but the cadence in their concern was from a perspective of consistency and not just being a "flash in the pan."

This conversation fueled me. It made me realize that I needed to evaluate where I was and where I'm at within this new beginning of my life. That conversation was another, while constructive criticism, a needed part in my process to make sure I was delivering from the purest of places. I couldn't thank that family member more for having the balls to be open and honest with me. The conversation ended with encouragement to go after it. To be unafraid to succeed through vulnerability, rawness and realness for any that read or listen to see.

(Disclaimer: a podcast is soon to come!)

If you write, write even when those creative juices have dried up. If you lift, lift even when you can't stand the thought of the gym. Dance? Dance even when your legs want to fall off and then do it some more. Whatever that "it" is for your life, trust that it will not come easy. Trust that you will fall. Trust that you will fail and that you will doubt and those around you will do the same. But trust the process and know that the end goal, the end result is completely within your capability. You just decide if you're going to arrive there or not.

"A river cuts through the rock not because of it's power, but it's persistence."

As I finish this post, I can't help but to think of the late-great Kobe Bryant. WE all know the Mamba Mentality and that he was the living embodiment for the term "work ethic". But what stuck with me in listening to one of his interviews recently was how he identified his process.

It was down to the minute of every day - he literally figured out how to add four more hours to his training than the rest of his teammates and the league just by getting up an hour earlier each day. It was so simple in it's construction and, obviously, magical in the execution. He is a legend because of his faith in his ability and the process that he built to get there. But most importantly, the where-with-all to see it through.

On a different scale, it's the same for all of us. What is it we are looking to achieve? Where are we looking to go and what is in front of us, currently, that we must endure? Life will surely happen, and we must stay true, we must be the river through the rocks and add the couple of hours to our day where need be to persist. And lastly, poetically, from the heart and mind of a six year old.....

"Just get over it...."

J.L.Copeland