Learning My Own Lessons
The should be a corollary to "Physician, heal thyself" for guys who teach life lessons learned from horses, but don’t follow those lessons themselves.
Over the past months, I have been sharing the life lessons that horses have taught me. I try to apply the particular horse lessons to universal life lessons. This week, a couple of those lessons stepped up and whacked me on the side of the head.
1. In my e-book, 10 Leadership Lessons Whispered By Horses, one of my chapters is "If there is a problem, Fix it." I talk about how people accept mediocrity with their horses, and their lives. They do not strive for excellence.
2. In my recent teleseminar, I talked about expanding my comfort zone, because that it where the real learning happens.
3.I also talked about how it is OK to be in a fog and not know how things will work out. The confusion and frustration are all part of the process of learning.
4. I wrote an Ezine Article about a French and Saunders comedy video in which I chided the characters for giving up on their horses jumping the jumps and jumped them themselves on foot.
I had to apply all of these lessons to myself last week, not when I was playing with horses, but when my lawn mower broke. I pulled my lawmower out of the shed last weekend because the weeds are getting too long. We have very few places where the grass is too long, but the weeds are going crazy. Three pulls on the cord, and the mower started up.
It ran for about a minute.
When I tried to start it again, the mower would only run for a few seconds. Last summer, I went through the same issue. Since I don’t know anything about lawn mower engines, and don’t really want to, I took it to a repair shop last time. Actually twice last summer. Each time they cleaned out the carburetor and told me to use better gas.
This year, I can’t afford the repair shop, so I tried to take the carburetor apart, but it seemed mysterious. I gave up before I got it completely apart. What would happen if I took it apart and couldn’t get it back together? What if I broke something? What if I spent an hour and it didn’t fix anything? Would it be less time if I hacked the weeds by hand? (See Lesson 1 above.) I ended up slapping the mower back together and just hacking the weeds with a scythe. (See Lesson 4).
On Tuesday, got to thinking about the mower again. I can’t get a new one. I can’t hire someone to fix it. I guess I should just jump in there and take that thing apart. (See Lesson 2) I did a little internet research on how to fix a lawnmower, and learned that I should take it apart and soak it in gasoline for 24 hours. That would loosen the gunk that might be clogging the jets. I took off the cover and removed the air filter. I disconnected the gas line and let the gas drain into a jar. I disconnected the throttle, and figured out how to remove and dismantle the carburetor. Hey, is this what it feels like to expand my comfort zone? (Lesson 2, again). I plopped the carburetor in the gasoline filled jar and sealed it.
I returned two days later and removed the carburetor from the jar. I dried it off. I used the air compressor to blow off as much gunk as I could. Would this work? Was I breaking anything? Was I wasting my time? (See Lesson 3) As instructed by the internet page, I used a thin wire to clean out all of the holes in that little hunk of metal. I didn’t know which holes needed to be cleaned, but I did find some gunk in a couple of holes. This was starting to be a puzzle and not a problem, and was actually kind of fun. I felt like I was coming out of the fog.
But would it work? I put everything back together. I pulled on the cord as hard as I could for a several pulls. It did not start. Oh. I forgot to reconnect the spark plug. A few more pulls. Wait. The throttle cable is not set right. Once I got that fixed, the mower started on the next pull, and worked wonderfully all afternoon.
The lawn mower is fixed. But more importantly, I relearned my lessons. I didn’t accept mediocrity, and looked for excellence in mower repair. I expanded my comfort zone and worked my way through the fog. And now the mower can cut down those weeds, and I don’t have to hack them manually.
Why do I have to keep learning the same lessons over and over?
Great post! We all accept mediocrity at one time or another. The ones I worry about are the ones who didn’t used to accept it but are now. They will have to move out of the same comfort zone they already moved out of once. How sad!
That because you’re learning to apply it to different things. It’s a little bit like a child.
I have two boys, ages 5.5 and 7. Cynrik is doing something he’s not supposed to, so we tell him “NO.” “No, Cynrik, NO!” And he stops.. but only with the hand he was using to do it. Now he does it with the other hand. Again, we tell him, “No, Cynrik, NO!”
He has to be told for each hand, so he understands he is really not supposed to do it.
Then his brother dives in to do it, and has to be told once for each hand as well.
Patricia,
Are your boys ambidextrous?
My horsemanship instructors say that the connections between the halves of a horse’s brain are not as strong as in a human brain. If we teach a task on one side, we have to also teach it on the other side as well. While I think it is true in some respects, I find that is easier to teach the task on the second side than on the first. So, there must be some connection.
Thanks for your comment.