Every so often you come across a quote that not only rings with undeniable truth, but it confronts you with its starkness and common sense. I’m sure this was the case when Jacob Rupert said to Babe Ruth “How can you manage a ball club, when you can’t even manage yourself?”
It really is amazing how true those words are, and how they can apply to nearly everyone. The word manage is defined as “…to handle, direct, govern, or control in action or use”. In realty, a person can handle a number of things in his world, including his attitude, the people he chooses to associate with, even the type of books that he curls up with on a rainy night. Each time you make a choice, you are in fact managing something or some one. Some of these choices are well reasoned and insightful, others simply are not. The only way to determine which choice is the right one is through the passage of time.
So, if you were to really take the time and look at the world around you, what could you really manage each day? Could you manage who cuts in front of you at the check out line? Not really. Would you be able to manage how well your child does in school? The only person who could manage how well your child does academically is your child. In other words, it is very difficult to manage the world around you. You’ll see people try, but sooner or later their efforts are met with heartache. There is truly only one thing and one person that you can manage with any success. You can manage your choices, and you can manage yourself.
Each one of us makes choices every day. Some of them seem small and insignificant. We feel the importance of others by the heavy, gray weight that we feel in our shoulders. In truth, however, making a choice is a fairly simple process. You either do something or you don’t. You can choose to follow the old adage to eat an apple a day. Or, you can forgo the apple for a brownie, or maybe nothing at all. The choice, and the ability to manage, is completely your own.
So the next time you’re faced with a time to manage yourself and your choices, stop and think. How can I make my life that much richer, more fulfilling? What can I do to manage my life better?