When I was younger, a holiday tradition that I enjoyed was the breaking of a wishbone. My Mom would let the wishbone of the turkey sit to dry out and let my sister and I pull it from different sides, with each of us attaching a wish to the success of our side of the bone prevailing dominant. I believed in the authenticity of this wish many times (and I often lost), but the realization that luck was absent from the equation did not hit me until many years later.
Now when I see a wishbone, I can clearly see which side will hold up to pressure. It is very slightly larger, it has more girth at the “flex-point”, and simply, has become second nature to visually detect.
Why am I sharing this experience? It relates to a lot of our lives; business, relationships, shopping, etc. “Hell, I either make it or I don’t”, or “I either get lucky with this or I miss”. It’s a bullshit philosophy. We see many signs over the course of our lives’ experiences to enhance the positivity of our decisions. We learn what works, we realize what does not, and we gradually evolve to become better at living in this society.
My kindergarten teacher, (If you’re out there, find me! I’d love to buy you dinner) taught us “to do our homework”. Funny thing is, my 1st grade teacher (You get dinner too!) had a large sign up that exclaimed, “Knowledge is Power.” I have heard the phrase, “All you need to know in life, you learned in kindergarten”- I think that meant sharing and generosity, but these two other lessons prevail. If you do your homework in life, you’ll be rewarded with knowledge, both directly and indirectly. Read, study, analyze, watch, listen, be humble, practice, persevere- you must do all of these things. The knowledge gained will allow you to choose the right side of the wishbone in life. Trust that all of the ups and downs will eventually correlate into positive decision-making when it really matters.
Life, in rare instances, is indeed left to chance and ends in arbitrary results, totally regardless of our input, but not often. We have the power to frame our lives based on proper decision-making. Make a plan. Trust your intuition. Be confident in your choices. If you know what is going to happen (or at least can make an educated-guess) before you make your choices, it makes life an awful lot easier. Make the right decisions, and those decisions will take care of you.
