{"id":542,"date":"2008-07-25T08:31:07","date_gmt":"2008-07-25T08:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/conspiring-circumstances\/"},"modified":"2008-07-25T08:31:07","modified_gmt":"2008-07-25T08:31:07","slug":"conspiring-circumstances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/conspiring-circumstances\/","title":{"rendered":"Conspiring Circumstances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><P><A style=\"DISPLAY: inline\" href=\"http:\/\/epicliving.blogs.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c78f953ef00e553b7f8548833-pi\"><\/A><A style=\"DISPLAY: inline\" href=\"http:\/\/epicliving.blogs.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c78f953ef00e553b7f8ab8833-pi\"><img decoding=\"async\"  class=\"at-xid-6a00d8341c78f953ef00e553b7f8ab8833 \" alt=Rain src=\"http:\/\/epicliving.blogs.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c78f953ef00e553b7f8ab8833-500wi\"><\/A> &nbsp;<A style=\"DISPLAY: inline\" href=\"http:\/\/epicliving.blogs.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c78f953ef00e553b7f6778833-pi\"><\/A><\/P><br \/>\n<P>Talked to my friend Robin this week and we discussed the idea of conspiring circumstances.&nbsp; You know, the things in life and work that always seem to come up to mess up.&nbsp; It used to vex me, but it doesn&#8217;t any longer.<\/P><br \/>\n<P>Some years ago, ironically, when I slaved in , I always saw circumstances as things that would eventually be eradicated (like polio or the black plague).&nbsp; But my naive leadership ways kept me from understanding the role circumstances play in this motion picture called life.&nbsp; Thankfully, I got older and wiser.&nbsp; I began to understand that it would be better to expect conspiring circumstances, than to be shocked by their appearances.<\/P><br \/>\n<P>The key is expecting them-really.&nbsp; I&#8217;m not recommending paranoia or always looking over your shoulder.&nbsp; But I am recommending a retro-view of your life to discover what part circumstances have played in the scenes of life.&nbsp; Hopefully, you&#8217;re the better for the experience.<\/P><br \/>\n<P>We&#8217;re so obsessed in our culture with being happy, being secure or arriving at some destination.&nbsp; If you hold onto those desires, you&#8217;ll be dismayed and sad when circumstances come on to thwart you.&nbsp; Listen, I&#8217;m not saying that you can&#8217;t be happy or secure.&nbsp; Just remember the seasonal nature of things.<\/P><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It should be a new&nbsp;paradigm where you&nbsp;accept that there will be times of unhappiness (which can actually lead to greater happiness).<\/li>\n<li>It should be a new paradigm that says security is best found in risk, not some idea that you can set up controls to make life safe.<\/li>\n<li>It should be a new paradigm that says the ride is infinitely more important than the destination.&nbsp; Focusing exclusively on the destination causes a missed life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><P>So the next time you get that promotion and the applause is uproarious, stop and remember how circumstances can, and always will, conspire as you make your way through.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Talked to my friend Robin this week and we discussed the idea of conspiring circumstances.&nbsp; You know, the things in life and work that always seem to come up to mess up.&nbsp; It used to vex me, but it doesn&#8217;t any longer. Some years ago, ironically, when I slaved in , I always saw&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,123,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coaching","category-leadership-development","category-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}