“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw
“Every man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.” – Mark Twain
A friend of mine has a saying that I never quite understood, but think I do now. “Be for what is.” Here’s what I think:
There are basically two ways of seeing:
1. the way things ought to be.
2. the way things are.
Do you find yourself moaning about the injustice of it all and wishing that things were different?
Be for what is.
Do you hear things like this? ‘If only my boss liked me better.’ ‘If only I had married someone else.’ ‘If only I had invested in Wal-Mart, Apple or Microsoft back when.’ There’s a little bit of that in all of us.
So now that we’ve established the wisdom of a pragmatic, clear-eyed view, let’s examine the equal-but-opposite wisdom offered by that other hemisphere of your brain, the right:
What might happen if a person simply rejected the way things are and insisted on seeing them as they ought to be?
1. First, the person would be considered a dreamer.
2. If persistent, they’d be considered a nuisance.
3. Then a renegade or a rebel.
4. Finally, a serious troublemaker and a borderline criminal.
5. Later, the founder of a movement.
Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Mahatma Gandhi. Martin Luther King.
I’m not trying to be indecisive or on the fence when I say I agree with both of these equal-but-opposite views. We must Be for What Is if we are to accomplish anything in the short term, and we must Be the Crank with a New Idea if tomorrow is going to be better than today.
But I think Robert Frost may have said it best:
“Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favor.”
Frost realized that both perspectives are true. Our society simply moves from one extreme to the other in an arc and we’ve been doing it since the beginning of time.
Where are you and your business in the arc of time and being for what is? Are you a dreamer or are you a troublemaker? Do you need to break out? Make a bold move? Find another market? Another customer?
Be for what is… at least for today. Call us if you need help!
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