Changing Direction In Life

August 3, 2014

Changing Direction in Life and Choosing a Better Road

By Dave Menzies

Changing direction in life both in the literal and the metaphorical sense is my thought for the day. The commonwealth games sent me from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other yesterday. Initial because they had me changing direction several times and in several ways. This is surprising since I have little or no interest in watching sports on TV or otherwise. So when major sporting events cause me inconvenience – quite often as I live near Hampden at the moment – I feel quite resentful. I resent the fact that I can’t get parked in my own street, have to sit in traffic jams and otherwise put up with my life being disrupted by majority rule.

I’m actually still angry about been held up by a public march 15 years ago. To be fair though this was an orange walk rather than a sporting event. This makes me angry anyway. I had to sit in my car and wait while thousands of these (insert your own collective noun) walked by. Changing direction was not an option unfortunately. This made me late for a paid band practice – grrrrrrrrr! Anyway I diverge.

This was the case yesterday when I simply wanted to nip out to a local supermarket for a bottle of wine and a few provisions. What should have been a 15 or 20 minute trip turned in a frustrating 2 hour ordeal thanks to the bloody games. I’d find one road closed so would turn back and try a different route only to find a massive traffic jam. I eventually went for another supermarket much further away which is really what I should have done in the first place.

Provisions bought I headed back home. Unfortunately due to all these forced delays, I was just in time to catch the Friday evening rush hour. I was actually on the very road that I used to commute to and from work a few years ago. I was reminded of just how much I hated that commute. On a Friday pm after a week of it I really couldn’t wait to get home and start the weekend. Since changing direction in life career wise thats certainly one part of my old life I’m glad to see the back of.

The traffic crawled along and the lights seemed to only let 2 or 3 cars through at a time. Many times I saw the lights change to green 20 or thirty cars ahead but no one moved and they returned to red. Eventually I got home yesterday as I always did when I was a commuter. I was annoyed, frustrated and again filled with resentment at being forced to rearrange my life around the interests of the masses.

Bizarrely though, a few hours later I found myself moved almost to tears by those same games which I found myself watching for some reason. Let’s face it they’ve been difficult to avoid as these major sporting events usually are.

The Power of Changing Direction in Life

My partner was watching a bit of gymnastics and I found myself drawn in too. A little later there was a highlights section. There was a quick interview with a young scots lass who had won some kind of running thing (sorry to vague but as say not my thing) Footage was shown of her victory and subsequent dash into the crowd to share a moment with her family. That’s what got to me.

There is something about seeing people achieving incredible things or just being stunningly good at them that sometimes chokes me up. It’s just raw emotion I guess but positive raw emotion. It’s sort of life affirming and much better than the negative emotions the same event caused me earlier in the day.

The Games – Making Me Change Direction Yesterday !

When I think about it both of the above experiences can be related to changing direction in life to running an online business and being part of an entrepreneurial community. The obvious one is that reminder of what commuting and rush hours are like and how grateful I am to be out of that world.

The less obvious possibly is the emotional side of things. Where I sometimes get that is on hangouts, webinars and live events where I hear how people have changed their lives and achieved amazing results with their business. Even in just a year with the SFM community I’ve seen incredible changes in some of the people I’ve met. They are changing direction in life in extraordinary ways.The fact that pretty much anyone can become a rockstar in the online industry when they apply themselves and work for it is amazing in itself. When you see and hear examples of the people who do and what they achieve it can bring tears of pride to your eye.