Tonight, I was out in the backyard doing some gardening, when I heard a garbage truck pull into the alley behind us. There is a large dumpster a couple of buildings down that gets emptied on Mondays. It was more than full this week as this past weekend was the end of the month. In Chicago, the end of the month means people are moving out and moving in. As such, there is always a surplus of trash. I had seen the dumpster earlier and I knew that there were a few end tables, a couch and a chair or two sitting in the alley next to the dumpster so this was going to take some time.

A few minutes later, I heard a horn honking – repeatedly. Apparently, the horn-honking driver wanted to turn into the alley. The garbage truck driver tried to explain that it was taking some time because of the extra trash (it’s hard to load a couch by yourself!). The horn kept honking. Now, I admit these things are frustrating. However, in this case, there is a very easy solution: drive around the block and enter the alley from the other end. Instead, more honking. Pretty soon, there are several cars honking because the car that is waiting to pull into the alley is blocking the side street. Nobody can move! This is at rush hour when everyone just wants to get home. Soon I heard a police siren. The policeman called out to the driver of the car, "Hey, buddy, could you just drive around the block and enter the alley from the other side?" The horn-honking driver quickly replied, "But I want to enter it from this side!" What I think that driver wanted was to be mad. Why would you deliberately stay stuck and mad when you could so easily solve the problem?

This reminds me of something a professor once said, "A mature adult, when faced with an option that doesn't work, finds another way. They don't sit whining and waiting for someone else to fix it." One of the things I learned from my mother is that there is always another way to get the job done. She could come up with five viable options before most people could think of one. She never took a failed option as a failure – to her it just got that option out of the way so she could get to the real solution faster.

How can you release your attachment to a particular solution so that you can move to resolution?

To Your Success,

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