Day 49: 20.2 miles/1:13
“Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.” ~Denis Waitley
When I finished yesterday’s ride, I was pretty excited. I had a longer ride but, the pace and the joy of the ride was pretty incredible. My exuberance was interrupted with a text message that Brandon had gotten kicked out of his rehab program on Monday. That was three days ago. What happened? Where was he? Here we go again. Because of my lessons learned, the clarity and focus from the 100 Pedals commitment, and my own sense of maintaining focus, I simply internalized the disappointment and concern associated with the news and went about my work.
This was a major breakthrough. One of the objectives of 100 Pedals was to “be even stronger for myself when Brandon falls down.” Here was the first tangible and real test for me and my development. And, I was able to stay strong, maintain focus, say a prayer for him and go back to my life. I celebrated this accomplishment.
Long story short, I did find Brandon last night at his NA meeting. I know that he has a certain meeting that he routinely attends and I took a gamble that he might be there and he was. We had a good twenty minute talk and he explained what happened. More importantly, he articulated the plan he had for getting into another rehab program on Monday. Talk about breakthroughs. Brandon found himself in trouble and instead of making it worse, he focused on finding a solution on his own and leveraging his connections to put it in place. I was pleased and comforted by his accomplishment. After our talk, I told him I loved him, dropped him off at the meeting and went on my way.
When I stumbled on this quote from a friend this morning, the timing could not have been more perfect. Mistakes occur, accidents happen and things go wrong. Rather than focus on what happened, who is at fault, or what went wrong the best course of action is to get back on track and do what is necessary to accomplish that. This was and is a major setback for Brandon. It quite possibly might result in him going back to jail. Instead of dwelling on the mistake or its consequences, he focused on what do to next to get moving forward. This is a great lesson for all of us and I am pleased that Brandon is the person who is sharing this example. Let’s hope it works out for him and he is rewarded, not for his mistake, but for the action he took to immediately deal with it.
