Do you remember the old style Christmas lights where if one bulb was missing, broken or loose, the whole strand went out? This Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender does, and spent more than a few hours each year trying to locate which bulb needed to be fixed in order to make the entire strand light up. More often than not the bulb in question just needed to be tightened in order to solve the problem, although it seemed like it was always the last bulb I would check.

New technology has all but made this problem a thing of the past, with strands that stay illuminated if a bulb is out and a very low cost to replace the entire strand if it does go out. This change from investing the time to find out what individual bulb was loose in order to fix the whole strand; to just replacing the strand without investing the time to locate the problem got this Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender thinking about how we as a society tend to handle relationships.

We are all in relationships with others (bulbs) that are part of larger communities (strands); families, neighborhoods, professional, etc. When something breaks down in these relationships (a bulb goes out), it affects the entire community (the whole strand). When this happens we basically have three choices.

1. Keep things the way they are, ignore the issue and hope things will improve.

(This usually means all the other bulbs in our strand are negatively impacted and remain dark)

2. Just decide the problem is not worth fixing and move on with your life.

(This is basically throwing out the strand and finding a new one to plug into)

3. Invest the time to understand and fix the problem.

(This takes time and can be a long process before the strand is again functioning properly, but eventually it will again shine brightly)

As a Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender, I am plugged into several different relationships within various communities (family, company, professional, and social just to name a few), and within each community there are always issues which pop-up and need to be addressed in order to keep things functioning properly. The question I (we all) need to ask when dealing with relational issues is this:

Which choice am I going to make in order to deal with this issue?

Having chosen options one and two during various times in my life, I can honestly say that while they may appear to provide the best solution, the impact they have on all the other bulbs in the strand are usually far reaching and carry long term consequences. So next time your strand starts to flicker, invest the time to tighten the bulbs (start with yourself first by the way), you’ll be pleased with the results once everyone is shining again.