Within Reach

In my last post, I talked about how most of the goals that matter in my life are completely within my control.  My diet, what I pay attention to, whether I exercise, whether I attend to my spirit, whether I'm kind, whether I give my best effort.  I'm completely responsible for these goals, and nobody can stop me.

What about the goals that are not completely in my control? Many of these are MOSTLY up to me.  I can realize these goals if I exert myself and I persist despite temporary setbacks.

Twenty years ago, I got a lesson in this type of persistence from a brilliant engineer named Al Sawdai.  Al and I were in a team attempting to fix a baffling problem that was threatening the launch of a new product.  The team was getting very frustrated.  The problem seemed to defy reason.  It felt as if we could never solve it.  But Al kept repeating, calmly and slowly, with a very thick accent, "Never forget that this problem must obey physics.  It must fit with scientific principles.  If we don't see that yet, we must keep looking, and then we will solve the problem."  No matter how many setbacks we encountered, he remained absolutely confident that we would prevail.  And we eventually did.

In the two decades that have passed in my engineering career since I worked with Al, I remember his attitude and his confidence every time I'm faced with troubleshooting a new problem.  These memories help me realize that, when faced with problems, I may not have COMPLETE control, as I do about daily decisions regarding diet and exercise.  But if I stretch myself and if I persist, I can probably solve the problem.

And it's not just technical problem solving.  There are countless goals in life that are not totally in my control, that are affected by outside forces, but that--with the right effort and persistence--I can almost certainly reach the goal.