I wrote an article in October 1996. It was called Lifestyle Inertia, and it suggested what I would consider to be one of the major impediments to positive change in somebody’s life. I acknowledge it here specifically because I wanted you to take a look at that particular article. Of all the articles I wrote, there is probably none that received more feedback than this one.
I wrote the article because I wondered why more people were not as successful as they wanted to be.
I was thinking the other night about something else that represents almost as significant an impediment to forward progress in our lives.
I call it “Self-Justification” and it is represented by justifying where you are today based upon what you have been doing in the past.
Do you remember the Oliver Stone movie called Born on the Fourth of July starring tom cruise? It is one of those incredible, impactful films, not necessarily because of the acting but for the story line itself.
Vietnam and the controversy of Vietnam have become almost cliché at this point. But what is not cliché is the enormous suffering by so many Vets who were put in the position of having to defend their country both legally and morally for a cause that was problematic to say the least. Indeed, for those Vets who came back without legs, partially scarred, or in a wheelchair, the justification was so much more difficult.
I remember that incredibly poignant scene in which Tom Cruise, good looking all-star, popular student, head of the class, was graphically reduced to an unfortunate wheelchair-bound misanthrope forced to justify who he was and why it happened.
“What’s wrong with me? What are you saying is wrong with me? There’s nothing wrong with me!” he screams.
How painful must it be to acknowledge, at that moment, that I am now bound in a wheelchair for the rest of my life for a decision I made that I, to this day, don’t really or fully understand?
How difficult must it be to acknowledge, some 20 years into a venture, that it is very possible I missed the boat entirely. I was wrong. I didn’t get it. I just plain missed it.
So instead of closing the gap, slowly at times or even redemptively at others, you continue to maintain the same path which, of course, continues to extend you out farther and farther from the reality of what has transpired. So rather than acknowledging that the times have changed and that his technology simply doesn’t work, Dr. Wang’s ship sinks. And wow does it sink big time. His Wang 3500 drops faster than the fastest anchor dropped from a battleship.
And Mr. Armstrong, 56 years of age and counting, huffing and puffing that AT& T is the backbone of telephone in America, gets his testicles handed to him on a golden platter by every upstart telecommunications company in the land with access to capital to bring to the table and a far better business model.
It truly must be incredibly difficult to turn your back on some 20 years of history. It must be unbelievably complex to turn on your heels and race back, unequivocally acknowledging you have been running in the wrong direction. How burdensome it must be to acknowledge that the truth lies elsewhere and you will not connect if you continue to go in the same direction.
But the truth is that redemption is the work of a single moment. Enlightenment is no slower than flipping on a light switch.
The moment of redemption occurs when you simply acknowledge, without self-righteousness of self-justification, that you were wrong and that the truth lies elsewhere.
Is that so hard? Is that so tough?
We all understand, at some intuitive non-emotional level, that maintaining personal responsibility maintains power; relinquishing personal responsibility loses your power.
Why do we not also understand that holding on, self-righteously, to what we have known t be true in the past does nothing more than propagate the same error in the future that we have lived in the past—ever widening the gap between where reality has gone and where we currently live?
Original writing date: January 2001