Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Whose life is it anyway?
It’ll all come out in the wash.
These are some of the notions you may well have muttered to yourself when life has seemed less than rosy or has thrown an unwelcome challenge at you. These notions may – or may not – be elements of your own life philosophy. And you almost certainly do have a life philosophy, even if, up till now, you hadn’t realised it, or had never got round to actually articulating it.
Let’s consider a real life example:
Sean, an administrator in a finance firm, found that a managerial role had become available in his department and decided he’d like to apply for it. However, he discovered that one of his colleagues – in fact one with whom he had a slightly prickly relationship – had already submitted his application for the role. Sean realised that, if either he or his colleague, Kyle, were successful in their application, this would create an extremely uncomfortable situation, with one now ‘managing’ the other and the other almost certainly finding himself with ruffled feathers.
He found himself on the horns of a dilemma:
If he applied and was successful, then he would find himself line-managing a subordinate (Kyle) whose feathers had been ruffled.
If he applied but it was Kyle who was successful, then he (Sean) would be the one with ruffled feathers.
The only other option was not to apply at all. But Sean realised that the outcome of this option might well be that, if Kyle’s application were successful, Sean would find himself being line-managed by Kyle and with ruffled feathers anyway!
Sean engaged some of his life mottos in earnest. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he reminded himself. “And whose life is it anyway?” He did a bit more internal muttering over his morning cup of coffee and then concluded: “In any case, it’ll all come out in the wash.”
And it did.
Sean’s application was unsuccessful.
And Kyle’s was too!
Kyle, bitter and twisted over the failure of his application, submitted his resignation. Sean continued going to work, with a bounce in his step despite his application not having been successful. He was disappointed not to be jauntily walking past the door of his own office to that of the manager’s office. But he found it extremely pleasant to have seen the back of Kyle!
The principles on which we base our life philosophy are what enable us to devise strategies for facing or resolving life’s challenges – as this account of Sean’s dilemma and how he dealt with it illustrates. Sometimes, though, we find ourselves confronting a dilemma that we feel ill-equipped to resolve, no matter how deep into our life philosophy we dig. At such times it is usually helpful to take a step back and to ‘sleep on it’ for a while before making any decisions. It may also be useful to take a look at the pearls of wisdom that I have collected over time that form the basis of my own life philosophy.
Please message me if you feel that a fresh and objective perspective on your dilemma may help resolve it.
You can read about my approach to counselling, mentoring and life-coaching to get an idea of how we would tackle your dilemma or problem.
