This, as you can imagine, made it a tedious task. I looked at the jumble of trees and came up with a perfect plan as to how I was going to go about my task. As I went about my business my supervisor followed behind with the weed sprayer before he put down the mulch.
A long while later (and I mean a long while) I had finished. I looked across the lawn at all the trees and went over them to make sure one hadn't been missed. Confident with my job I waited for my supervisor to catch up.
A few minutes later he came up to me and told me I had done a good job, but I had missed a few trees. This baffled me, I was positive I had gone over all of them, but he was right. He took me over to the trees I had missed. They weren't even bundled together as if I had missed a patch, instead they were spread throughout the lawn like little holes in my patchwork.
This experience spoke to me as a metaphor for things that happen in our lives. Look at the lawn with the trees as your potential in your life. The plan I had to weed eat all the trees was the plan that we have laid down for our lives, or a specific part of our life. I went through following my plan as best as I could, considering the random placement of the trees.
When I was done, even though I felt I had covered everything, I was shown the spots in which I had missed, overlooked, or forgotten about. If it weren't for that outsider's point of view, I would have never realized some of the mistakes I made. I would have never realized how to better my plan and make sure that next time it wouldn't happen.
Many times we try to go through life by ourselves, not letting anybody in. But if we don't let somebody in on our thoughts, plans and emotions then we will be blind to the spots in our lives that have holes in them. If we have an outsider's point of view, many times we can realize and learn from our mistakes.
The dreaded word accountability comes to mind. When this word is mentioned, many people assume a negative connotation to it. Someone who keeps us accountable just tells us what we're doing wrong, this is not true. A person we set to keep us accountable is there to point out those missed trees in our lives, and to help us complete the job if necessary.
Don't look at accountability as being told what you are doing wrong, rather look at it as something that allows you to see your holes, fix them, and create a better plan for next time. It is something that should also be encouraging and not negative.
Sometimes we need that outsider's perspective because we can't always see everything around us, even if we think we do.
Who is the outsider currently in your life, and how much of your plans and thoughts do you let them see?
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