Next Time

About thirty years ago my mom gave me a paperback book called A Touch of Wonder by Arthur Gordon. She wisely didn’t make a big deal about me reading it. She just said, “You might enjoy it.” It cost her $3.95. I’m unable to put a price on the value of lessons I learned from this book, especially the chapter titled The Roadblock of Regret. 

In it Arthur tells the story of meeting a friend at a restaurant shortly after his failure in a major project. His friend was pushing eighty and still practicing psychiatry. He immediately noticed something was wrong with Arthur and asked him what was going on. After Arthur told his friend the story he received some sage advice. 

Arthur had used the words if only several times while telling about his situation. He explained to Arthur that if only “is full of a subtle poison”. He goes on to say “The trouble with if only, is that it doesn’t change anything. It keeps a person facing the wrong way-backward instead of forward.” Finally he concludes, “Strike out the words ‘if only’; substitute the phrase next time.”

This made a lot of sense to me. A few years earlier I’d read The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. Throughout the book he wrote about the importance of self-talk, the thoughts I keep telling myself. To me if only sounded a lot like, should have. Should have is a blaming statement and a phrase I wanted to eliminate from my self-talk.  I was using it much too often. Now I had a good way to do it. Instead of saying should have I would say next time. I was surprised how quickly I picked up this new habit. Every time I started to say should have an alarm went off in my head and I changed it to next time.

By using next time I was forward thinking. I’m still responsible for my actions. However, now I can take something positive away from an unfortunate event. It’s not a total loss. I can be wiser for my experience. As Yoda tells Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi, “The greatest teacher failure is.” 

This changed my whole attitude surrounding errors and mistakes. Now I see them as a teacher instead of just something to lament. I lost count long ago of how many times I’ve substituted next time for should have or if only. I still do my best to be thorough and get things right the first time, see the Why Take a Chance When You Have a Cinch post. However, when mistakes come, as they will, I learn from them and do better next time. Nothing more complicated than perception.

May you have enough today, one moment at a time.

Let your vagus nerve help.