Who’s your Wendy Allen?

With every great hero comes a great villain. The bigger the villain, the bigger the hero called forth to face it. In fact, the villain’s role is to challenge the hero to grow or perish.

At times, your villain can be your internal dialogue, an illness, lethargy, limited thinking, disempowering beliefs, dream-stompers, a disability, a co-worker, a boss, a bully, a competing company, a spouse, a sibling, a telemarketer, or a woman named Wendy Allen…

Verizon gave me a rare gift when I moved last year—an easy to remember phone number. In the weeks following the move, telemarketers had a difficult time reaching me, but one day, as if a kink had been released in the telemarketing hose, an onslaught of incessant calls gushed in at the rate of four or five per day.

Suppressing my frustrations and anger (usually), I started chatting with the telemarketers and found they were all calling for a Wendy Allen who either owed money, signed up for a subscription or opted-in to a specific sales list. At first I figured that Wendy Allen was the prior owner of my phone number and assumed the calls would diminish. A couple of sales agencies told me she had provided my number within the last seven days. At that moment I realized Wendy Allen was using MY phone number as her phony number!

One year later I still have the same phone number, and I occasionally get inconvenient telemarketing calls. But my reaction is different now: Instead of getting irritated, frustrated or angry, I smirk and wittily engage the human being on the other end of the phone. I briefly tell him or her the story of how they were given a phony number and how I appear to be intertwined in a deceitful plot. He or she laughs and apologizes. The event ends there.

Sometimes we can maneuver around unwanted situations, carving out favorable results. Frequently, however, events will be outside our control and the only thing we can manage will be our reaction. How you react to frustrating, untimely circumstances greatly determines the direction your Journey will take.

Don’t try to eliminate Villains—they are a sign of a thriving adventure. Our Wendy Allens serve the vital purpose of preparing us for another stage of our Journey. Villains like Wendy Allen continue to show up in our lives until we master a particular lesson. Although the villain may still persist, her power over us will be weakened. Once we learn to throw water over the Wicked Witch of the West, she will never bother us again. However, more insidious villains lurk around the corner.

Instead of trying to rid yourself of villains, be open to attracting bigger problems into your life. Remember, the size of the hero is in direct proportion to the size of the villain. Once you become proficient at conquering smaller villains, larger ones will appear. As you evolve in your hero role, you will achieve the wherewithal to overcome the treachery of even the most mammoth monsters.

Will you cower in the face of upset? Or will you laugh and enter the demon’s lair? In a way, this choice defines everything.

Happy Journeys!
Scott Jeffrey

P.S. And Wendy, if somehow you’re reading this, I’d still appreciate it if you stopped giving out my phone number. Thanks!