How many times do we make life harder than it has to be?

More than a year ago I bought a brand new Macintosh laptop as we were leaving on our big RV travel adventure because, well, I had the cash, and I wanted it. Plus I knew it would make my work go faster.

I’d already been using a Mac laptop for a number of years, and it worked just fine. The new Mac was so new that it required all new software upgrades for the programs I use to earn a living.

Now, I’m one of those people who is slow to adopt anything new. I want to make sure that all the software bugs are worked out before I make a change.  And the new Mac, also had a learning curve of its own with its new operating system. So as I was learning the new Mac system, I kept doing my client work on the old Mac.

And I KEPT doing my work on the old Mac. And I KEPT doing my work on the old Mac. And I KEPT doing my work on the old Mac. Do you get my drift here?

Since everything was working fine on the old Mac, it was just easier to keep doing it. Plus, I had decided that when I moved everything over to the new Mac I was going to encounter all kinds of problems. And I didn’t have time for problems.

So the weeks passed and the months passed, and I kept working on the old Mac even after it was urging me to give it up. I could no longer get on the Internet with it, and older programs stopped working. And I was spending a good deal of my time transferring files back and forth between computers the hard way with a little jump drive.

Then, the old Mac crashed. I tried reviving it. But it was dead. And guess where all the files were that I’d been working on for the last year? You got it. On that old Mac drive.

Well, it took a very savvy technician, a miracle or two, a good chunk of cash, and a lot of time that “I didn’t have” to get back all of those files. And in the meantime I was forced to kick into high gear and make all those programs work on the new Mac.

Guess what? They all worked beautifully and seamlessly. And blazingly fast.

And then, I actually said out loud, “Geez! I wish I’d done this a year ago!”

For a whole year I was making my life harder than it needed it to be.  (I think again of that commercial running these days: Thunk on the head -- “I could have had a V-8!”)

Have you ever done that? We cling to our old ways of doing things, or to our old belief systems that no longer serve us, and then we complain to anyone who will listen about how our life isn’t working very well.

Sometimes we have to walk away from, not only things or beliefs, but people as well. We realize that a person we routinely rely on for some service is not real swift, but it’s too much trouble to find someone else to do the job.  So we just grumble and go back yet again.

What are you hanging on to that is no longer serving you? What could you cast aside that would allow more joy into your life?

There’s only one person you have control over, and that person is you. Any change you want to make in your life has to start with you. And when you do it is up to you.  How many lessons do we need to learn that sooner is better than later?  Don’t do like I did and wait until a crisis forces you into finally making a change. Make the decision now, and start now.

So, let me ask you this... 

What can you let go of that is making your life harder?