No Easy Button to Success for Life

There is no easy button to success and no fairy godmother with a magic wand to help me in walking out this journey but there is a simple path that I can follow.

If there were an easier method then everyone would be doing it. If the magic button existed then everyone would get one and everyone would use it. If there were really fairy godmothers or shoemaking elves then certainly one or more would have shown up at my house by now.

They don’t exist. They were created in the mind of an imagination that was trying to teach a point – mostly I miss the point and only see the magic. They are not going to show up and make it all better because they are not in charge or responsible for my journey.

Just because they don’t exist doesn’t mean the way isn’t simple and the burden isn’t light.

Several years ago, I left my husband alone with the kids while I attended a conference out of town. The second morning I got the call – but I confess it was not what I had expected. “Hey, how do you make biscuits.”

If you have read much of what I have written, or if you have listened to the #GrowingHOPE broadcasts, or if you have met me at one time or another then you already suspect that this is not going to go well – and you would be right.

The conversation – if you can call it that – continued along this line:

ME: Are you using the biscuit mix?

HUBBY: Yes

ME: Do you have buttermilk?

HUBBY: Yes

ME: Pour some of the biscuit mix in the bowl and then make a little indention in the center, like a pool, and add some buttermilk. Then mix the two together until you have the consistency you want.

HUBBY: How much mix and how much buttermilk?

At this point, even I recognized that the conversation wasn’t going well. I could hear the irritation growing in his voice and I wasn’t even trying to annoy him. I could have made up the amounts that were necessary, but I honestly had no clue. I hadn’t read the instruction in years and I wasn’t even sure they boxes still came with instructions. I had no clue.

ME: When I make biscuits I simply our the mix in a bowl and then add some buttermilk – I have no idea the amounts.”

I should have just made up some figures because even if it had been a disaster it would probably have annoyed him less than not having an answer. My husband wants exact and precise answers. Again, you can see where this leads to some fun conversations in our relationship. His response to my biscuit making skills was less than stellar.

He wanted specific directions that would produce specific results. He needed a guarantee that it would work and would produce what he wanted. He took something simple and made it way more complicated than it needed to be.

It wasn’t so much that he wanted an easy button for biscuits – although I did learn to keep frozen biscuits in stock for those days when I am away – what he wanted was a guarantee – which is just as much of a mythical creature as the easy button and magic wand.

There is only one guarantee in this journey – and even that guarantee does not guarantee that it the results will be what I wanted or even what I expected.

The key to walking boldly in this journey is to let go of the need to complicate the situation with demands and expectations and to choose to take the next step. This focus on doing and reaching is as close to an easy button to success as you will ever find.

Be blessed,