Michael

To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.” – Benjamin Franklin

I want to be a reflection of what’s going on and let people draw their own conclusions.” – Neil Young

Jumping to conclusions can generate a lot of negative feelings. Generally, when we make leaps like this, it is with the expectation of a bad outcome. Someone is going to do or say something we don’t like. Something bad is going to happen at a certain time. And on and on and on.

I jumped to a conclusion today and I was completely wrong. Well, honestly, only part of me was jumping to the wrong conclusion. The other part was perfectly fine and had high hopes and expectations. So, I decided to take this opportunity to try and be an observer of my negative thought patterns.

My electric guitar has some problems with the neck. In fact, it appears to be a factory defect. I got a second opinion from a guitar repair shop that I trusted. When I was told the problem, a part of me began thinking all kinds of negative thoughts. I was thinking that the place where I bought the guitar (a large nationwide store) was only selling bad equipment to unsuspecting people. I was thinking that they would try and not take responsibility for the issue even though I was well within the one year warranty period. In fact, a part of me was thinking all kinds of bad thoughts about the people at the store and the store itself.

The old me would have latched on to this train of negativity and become all worked up by the time I arrived at the store. Since I had a large portion of my thoughts thinking positive things like how the store would honor the warranty and do everything to help me, I was able to stay calmer.

I went to the store and I had wonderful customer service experience. A very nice young lady in charge of repairs looked at the guitar, saw the problem and proceeded to tell me that they would ship it to their Fender repair center. The technician will be calling me on Monday to discuss what repairs will be needed. They will either fix the neck or replace it. At no point did they try and do anything less than the right thing.

Hmmmmm. My negative side became quite sheepish. My positive side was smiling even more than before.

Moral: Don’t jump to conclusions and if you are, why not make them positive conclusions instead. You just might be surprised.

Have a great day!

Michael