💷 TREE 401: Just (don't) live with it

One.

This is the flipside-ish of yesterday’s post.

I have a stupidly large capacity for tolerating the status quo instead of making a change. How large?

Exhibit A: I was having back problems. I waited nearly a year before buying an exercise programme to fix it. I waited three months after buying the programme to start it.

Exhibit B: I kept working as a pastor in a church for five years after I stopped believing in God. (I did a good job too.)

When it’s not time to change, my capacity is called endurance. When it is time to change it’s called Jeff, you moron, wake up and pay attention to what your circumstances, your heart and your wife are telling you!

Here are two things that help me know the difference:

1. Asking what’s going on and paying attention to what the evidence around me is saying. What’s going on with my finances, my relationships, my mental and emotional state? Am I moving in a good direction? Am I doing work that I believe in?

2. Christine. She has a low tolerance for the status quo. She knows it’s time to change before I do. A thing I’ve learned in nearly 26 years of marriage is that listening to Christine is the smartest thing I ever do.

Are you paying attention to the evidence around you?

Do you have someone in your life who balances your (in)tolerance of the status quo?

Two.

Carlos Arroz does things the old-fashioned way: harvest at 4 AM, boil at 5, mash at 6. Being an artisan mashed potato farmer isn’t easy, but Carlos is the best and his customers know it.

The digital original is SOLD.

Three.

Music for when it’s time to change things (or maybe just dance).

Kind of related: you know that very important Maya Angelou quote – “When people who you who they are, believe them the first time.” Here’s four minutes of Oprah talking about it and talking to Maya Angelou about it.

Grow slowly
Jeff