Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, something happens and you’re off screaming in the direction of the problem to fix it before it becomes a major catastrophe. (That’s me, anyway.) But not everyone reacts this way. Many years ago I was cleaning up after dinner. When I moved the kitchen garbage pail I saw an ant. I screamed, “Honey! Come in here! We have ants!” My then husband Brad moseyed into the kitchen, looked down and laughed. “We don’t have ants, Jen. We have ANT.” And he bravely squashed the lone soldier right there on our beige tiled floor. It was spectacularly hilarious, but c’mon, there’s never just one.
Brad was also one to capitalize on good fortune. Once I found a $5 bill right in front of our apartment on East 72nd Street. I was so excited! Brad said to me, “Jen what’s the first thing you do when you find money on the street?” Ummmmm?? “You look for more money.” In this case he was absolutely right. I found another $5 a foot away. I ended up using the lucky ten bucks as my co-pay for my doctor bill when Matty was born, so it was certainly good luck indeed. (That’s where the genius of Brad ended, but that’s another story altogether.)
We make judgement calls all the time based on experience, fear, time of day, lust, level of energy, expectations, audience, and other compelling factors. When people hear the word “judgmental” they think it’s such a bad word. Not true! Judgements help us avoid getting hit by traffic, determine when we’ve had enough to eat (maybe not the best example), and decide when to wear shorts vs. a leather jacket.
I had an offsite trip with my old company a few years ago. Our group went clay shooting upstate at Orvis Sandanona. I was up against a senior executive who grew up on a farm, a serious gun lover (Billy, we’ve really gotta talk), and eight or so other first timers like me. I had fired a gun a few times before– a .22 Ruger for some outdoor target practice, and I was a pretty good shot, but I’d never fired at something moving. Needless to say, I won the competition. I was the only shooter to get ten out of ten targets at one of the stations, successfully judging the timing of the gunshot to the target every time.
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