Criticize Or Submit

I have found that emotions can really drive me to do strange things. One area of my life that particularly caused me problems was that I was absolutely awful about criticizing. I criticized everything, people, actions, government, work, things in my home… You name it, I could find a problem with it and criticize it. I prided myself in being able to find problems as I worked in software quality assurance, and I had a warped idea that finding problems was my job.

I gave in to the idea that I had to find fault. If I didn’t I was giving in to life that was trying to beat me down.

I was, in fact, beating myself and others down because I was reacting to everything around me rather than choosing to see the good that I or others could be doing. My perspective and thought process turned toward what was wrong instead of solving problems. It is one thing to find problems and take pride in it. It is quite another to see opportunities to improve things. The intent makes the difference.

Opportunities

Have you ever wondered how many opportunities are around you each day? I recently had an opportunity to visit Canada and tour one of the national parks in Alberta. There were a lot of opportunities that led to my choice to travel there. The first was when my wife and daughter noticed that Parks Canada was giving out free parks passes for the year as it is the 150th anniversary of the founding of the parks system in Canada. We could have ignored that opportunity, but my daughter wanted to go back to Canada and if nothing else, visit with some of her friends she had met there when she lived there for 18 months as a service missionary.

My daughter asked if I would go with her if she could get the time off. I checked my schedule, and it worked. I thought about it and decided I wanted to go with her for a lot of reasons even though it was going to be a whirlwind trip over four days. My wife asked if she should take time off from work to go and we said, “YES!” We found accommodations and prepared our van and got food for the trip. Planning out our gas stops was easy, until we learned that one option was not going to work due to the Labor Day holiday and the business’ holiday closure, but we found other options.

We wanted this to happen, so we found the opportunities that allowed it to happen. There were times when it looked like it might not happen, but we held our intention for a great family vacation and things fell into place.

The Right Time

We made the 12 hour drive up to Canada and had a remarkable trip. The kids got along the whole time. My how things have changed in our family.

There was a lot of smoke in Montana from the wildfires that were burning there. We arrived safely and slept well. We got up the next day and drove to Waterton Lakes National Park. As it was a holiday weekend, it was busy, by their standards. Parking in the Waterton Town Site because there was no parking at the visitors center, we hiked up to the visitors center, used the washrooms and then headed up the trail to Bears Hump which overlooks the Waterton lakes and the lower portion of the park. There was a lot of smoke from fires in British Columbia which boarders the park, but it was worth the strenuous hike to the top. The view was great.

You can see part of the town site just over my left shoulder. It was beautiful and windy. We visited several other areas of the park that day, but the last area had us concerned. The smoke was starting to billow over the park and the air was becoming acrid. We watched the conditions around us and continued to enjoy our excursion.

The Story After

By the time we left the park, the sky over the rolling hills of Cardston County were brown and red. Little did we know at that time that Glacier National Park in Montana was being evacuated. The next day, most of Waterton was closed. By this last weekend, the park was closed, and fires were raging through it. The visitors center is now gone as are many of the beautiful sights along the trail to Bears Hump. Things change in life. Had I chosen to be critical of things that came up during our planning and our trip, I would have missed out on seeing the beauties of Waterton that are no more.

Flames burned into Waterton last night, gutting the visitor centre and the trailhead to Bear’s Hump. Video by @TheDewser pic.twitter.com/sirjfQkfBU

— CBC Calgary (@CBCCalgary) September 12, 2017

Criticism can lead to results that we don’t want. I encourage you to become conscious of how you are seeing and describing circumstances around you. Own your decisions and the results. Be forgiving of others. Don’t miss out on the beauty of the world around you because you don’t know when it may go away, just as Waterton Lakes National Park has transformed. I look forward to visiting again and see how the park will transform over time. You too can transform, and you get to choose what that transformation will lead to in the end. Make it a great transformation.