Focus on what you can control
Tom
met with his older mentor Dwyer, for his weekly chat.
“You
seem troubled,” observed Dwyer.
“You
know that project that I’ve been working on? It just didn’t work and I couldn’t
get the result that I was after. In fact, I worked so hard on it, that I
certainly deserved a better outcome,” responded Tom with frustration.
The
mentor took Tom outside and pointing to a plant, said, “See this dead tomato
plant. I did everything right when I planted it. I watered it, fertilized it
and made sure that there were no weeds around it, but it still died. No matter
how much you want to control the final outcome, you can’t. All that you can do
is control the controllable, take responsibility for doing all that you can and
leave the ultimate outcome up to God.”
“So
what do I do? If I can’t be guaranteed success, should I just give up?” asked
Tom, preparing to leave.
Giving
him a basket full of large, juicy, bright red tomatoes, Dwyer said, “Of course
not every tomato plant died. If you consistently do the right thing, you will significantly
increase your chances of delivering successful outcomes. But if you give up due
to one or two negative results, you’ll never reap a reward.”
