The Rat In The Attic...

I woke up at 5:45am this morning feeling a little more than dead to the world. I had only 2.5 hrs sleep because of the big rat in our house last night that terrorized me until 3am!

The rat just wanted to get out of my house. He had been under my kitchen cupboards for 2 days and my kids and I were terrorizing him really good. We had rat traps set, the kitchen blocked off, we had that side of the house locked up pretty good.

So there I was standing there in the dark holding a flashlight at 2am waiting silently for the critter to appear from my fireplace so I could shew him out the back door and onto the patio but he had his own escape plans. I think he was really ticked off at us for keeping him awake and terrorizing him by pushing broom handles into the hole and making him run for his life.

He had evaded every trap and left all of the poison pellet packages completely alone while biting into everything around them. He was a very smart rat. I kept thinking that he could not possibly know there was poison in there -I mean if he had eaten it before he'd be dead right?! Why leave those packets alone and touch everything else? I tried apple, cheese, and peanut butter on the traps for bait and to no avail.

Anyways, back to me standing there waiting...

At about 3am I stopped. Gave up and said out loud (into the fireplace) "Okay rat -you win! I'm going to bed!"

What a release! I was free!

I still haven't caught the thing and for all I know he could be in the attic now running around but I'm free! Why?

I think it's because I finally gave up trying to control the situation to have it turn out a certain way. I wanted that rat to come out of his hiding spot and run outside and even stop for some peanut butter on the way out to get his head snapped off! I was so intent on this that nothing else occured to me -not sleep, food, spending time with my family -anything!

Life doesn't turn out how we want it to or don't want it to -it turns out exactly the way it does. Once I gave up control -to have life turn out a certain way -the way I really really wanted it to I was free. Free from the pressure and stress of trying to control an uncontrollable thing.

I started speculating this morning as I was driving my wife to the transit station. I thought of the many things in my life that I want to turn out a certain way. A light went on. Let go and let God.

My business coach Stan tells me this. "Take action in the present but let God handle the unknowns."

This brings you peace and freedom.

Look at your life today and see where you can let go of your control. Once you let go you can take action to have it work!