{"id":37581,"date":"2024-04-17T15:27:40","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T22:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=37581"},"modified":"2024-04-17T15:27:40","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T22:27:40","slug":"bad-choices-make-good-stories-or-do-they","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/bad-choices-make-good-stories-or-do-they\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Choices Make Good Stories \u2026 or Do They?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Created in Canva by Nancy Blackman<\/p><\/div>\n

INTRODUCTION<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chris and I were at Target looking for something, I can\u2019t remember what, and I spotted a t-shirt that had the words, \u201cBad Choices Make Good Stories.\u201d Knowing that Chris would understand the double entendre, I grabbed it and held it up for him to see. He smiled. \u201cWould you wear it?\u201d I asked. \u201cYeah, I would.\u201d And he did. Some people would chuckle when they saw it, but some people gave him the deer-in-headlights look, scooting over a bit to give more distance between them and Chris.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what bad judgment can do. \u201cGood judgment is expensive, but poor judgment will cost you a fortune.\u201d[1]<\/a> The other part of bad judgment is that it affects more than one person. It has a ripple effect on everyone connected to that person, directly and indirectly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A CONFUSING TIME THAT NEEDED BETTER DECISION-MAKING<\/strong><\/p>\n

When we lived in Los Angeles, we attended a church in downtown LA. It was also located two blocks from Skid Row, so the congregants ranged from the homeless to people who lived in SROs (single-room occupancy) to people who lived in homeless shelters to loft dwellers.<\/p>\n

One of the congregants lived in a shelter as he was rebuilding his life. For the sake of anonymity, he will be referred to as Joe. As a church plant, we first started in a small restaurant, then moved to a trendy nightclub, and then to its current location, a historic theater.<\/p>\n

When we were at the nightclub, Joe, came over and sat next to me. As we were waiting for church to begin, he leaned in and asked, \u201cDo you think if someone wins money gambling that they need to tithe from the winnings?\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked, \u201cIs the \u201csomeone\u201d you?\u201d<\/p>\n

He paused and answered, \u201cYes.\u201d I asked because he was on the Finance Team with Chris. My brain was exploding, not sure what to say. So many thoughts raced around in my little brain, such as what answer offers grace,<\/em> or what this says about his character,<\/em> or why me?! Lord, why me?!<\/em><\/p>\n

Shane Parrish, in his book, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results<\/em> writes about evaluating options in Chapter 4. I am focusing on this chapter because throughout the entire time that Chris and I were \u201cfriends\u201d with Joe, there were different paths that both of us could have taken but didn\u2019t. In other words, when we needed to make proper decisions, I feel we failed. In the end, what started as a question revealed so much more about Joe, his character, and his ability to lie.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE BACKSTORY<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you find yourself struggling to determine specific criteria, it\u2019s a sign either that you don\u2019t really understand the problem, or that you don\u2019t understand the general features that criteria are supposed to have.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

As time went by, the three of us shared more time together. Red flags were evident as Joe weaved more tall tales, but I ignored them. Why? I ask myself that all the time.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Joe embezzled $20,000 from the church. The ripple effect forced me to pause to reflect on my actions or lack thereof. When a person is challenged with finding criteria, Parrish states it\u2019s because they don\u2019t understand the problem or they \u201cdon\u2019t understand the general features that criteria are supposed to have,\u201d[3]<\/a> which are clarity, goal promotion, and decisiveness.<\/p>\n

With respect to those points and this situation, I did not have enough clarity over this person because he was a pathological liar, and I was inexperienced in dealing with someone of this caliber. Obviously, the category of goal promotion for achieving a trusting friendship was not mutual. Lastly, the decisiveness for me to be equal partners in a friendship was not Joe’s goal.<\/p>\n

As Parrish explains, when there is ambiguity, people will interpret in the only way they know how. Unfortunately, \u201ctheir decision-making process becomes a playground for the emotion default.\u201d[4]<\/a> That statement nails it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TAKEAWAYS<\/strong><\/p>\n

My critical skills went out the door to preserve a relationship that wasn\u2019t even authentic. There are many lessons to learn from this Othello-like saga, but I am reminded of a statement from a previous book, \u201cThe great lesson of this turnaround is that when any relationship system is imaginatively gridlocked, it cannot get free simply through more thinking about the problem. Conceptually stuck systems cannot become unstuck simply by trying harder.\u201d[5]<\/a> The only thing that can create a breakthrough is for all parties to separate themselves emotionally, which happened anyway because Joe went on the lam once a warrant was placed for his arrest.<\/p>\n

It has been about ten years since that situation occurred. One question still lingers: what would I say to Joe if I came face-to-face with him?<\/p>\n

Obviously, Joe\u2019s lies were well-cloaked in a narrative that swept me away from my moral compass so that the social norms of behavior became skewed in some weird acceptance.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n

Another thing that happened was my System 1 and 2 Thinking weren\u2019t syncing. System 2 was asking questions, but System 1 couldn\u2019t respond and engage. I blame myself for not listening to my Inner Voice that was pleading for me to pause and pull back.<\/p>\n

I like how Parrish encourages his reader, \u201cMaking a good decision is about the process, not the outcome. One bad outcome doesn\u2019t make you a poor decision-maker any more than one good outcome makes you a genius.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results<\/em> (New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 245). Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 155.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid., 156.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em>, 10th Anniversary, Revised Edition) (p. 59). Church Publishing Incorporated. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Bobby Duffy, Why We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding<\/em> (New York: Basic Books, 2019), 66.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results<\/em>, 216.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INTRODUCTION Chris and I were at Target looking for something, I can\u2019t remember what, and I spotted a t-shirt that had the words, \u201cBad Choices Make Good Stories.\u201d Knowing that Chris would understand the double entendre, I grabbed it and held it up for him to see. He smiled. \u201cWould you wear it?\u201d I asked. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3198,3195,3196,3194,3197,2045,2967,35,1692],"class_list":["post-37581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-clearthinking","tag-ego","tag-emotion","tag-inertia","tag-social","tag-clarity","tag-dlgp03","tag-leadership","tag-parrish","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37581"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37583,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37581\/revisions\/37583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}