You Land Where You Look

Photo credit: ClickFlashPhotos

The following story ended up among my comments on Copyblogger this week. But I had originally intended to blog about it here. So, I’m reclaiming it.

It’s about my brother, and the last training jump he made during his distinguished career as a paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne Division.

Spoiler alert: He lands on an ambulance.

Clearly, he didn’t begin with that goal in mind. He made an orderly departure from the plane, deployed his chute and skillfully guided his descent toward the assigned landing zone.

A little to the side of the target area, however, this ambulance was parked as standard protocol, in case anyone landed poorly.

My brother later acknowledged he had a selection of safe landing spots on every side of the ambulance. But once he began drifting toward it, he began thinking to himself, “Don’t hit the ambulance. Don’t hit the ambulance…”

Then he hit the ambulance. Smacked into the back panels and kissed his knees hard. Fortunately, he escaped with only a few bruises and a deeply enriched sense of irony.

When I asked him later why he didn’t guide his descent elsewhere, he reflected that he simply went where he had focused his attention.

And therein lies the lesson for us all: Our focus tends to decide our actions (or lack thereof), and our actions tend to decide our destination.

The point here isn’t that we should be forever focused on a specific goal. It’s that we should occasionally detach from where we’re focusing long enough to ask, is that where I want to land? Am I focusing too much on a projected end-goal, rather than on the next necessary step… or vice versa? Are fear and anxiety distracting me from altering a potentially disastrous course?

The trick isn’t always to avoid the ambulance. It’s to replace the ambulance.

That’s an important message in a highly competitive economy where things appear to be moving much more quickly than they actually are.

Take a breath. Stop. Think. Refocus.