Globe Trotting in One's Mind

One’s mind can be a dark and dreary place but more often it can be an exciting place to dwell in.  Even in this long age of maturity I find that I still have an extremely active imagination which can often lead me into some mind boggling theories.  Mankind has boundless potential for creating, inventing and envisioning the universe and just think, we all have our capacity for roaming around in one’s own mind.

       I thought it would be interesting to relive some of the self help books I have read over the years, jogging my memory with the enlightened thoughts who have gone before us.  It is rather disconcerting sometimes to have to go through the alphabet more than once to recall a book, an author, a saying, and finally the meaning behind the words.  Yesterday I was sitting in a meeting, waiting for others to arrive and I happened to think of Shakespeare’s Henry V “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers” but then I couldn’t remember the rest of the speech.  While I don’t pretend to be a true Shakespearean scholar I had studied up on that play a few years ago and yet my mind went blank.

       From that little agony I went through my mind on remembering what are The Four Agreements, Be Impeccable with Your Word, Don’t Take Things Personally, Don’t Make Assumptions and Always Do Your Best.  Here again I paused since I had stumbled on something that had me rather concerned, wondering if a friend had betrayed me.  Although I was upset for a while I let myself take time and decided to use the third agreement and not assume the worst.  This morning I refreshed myself with the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People where one of the habits is to look for a win/win rather than a me first attitude.

       It’s always easy to see, say and believe the worst and yet to do so causes untold pain and mental torment.  How much simpler to calm our primitive instinct down and search in our dark mind for the various little candles that have been lit by wonderful reading, discussion or other creative illustration.  As my old professor coached me “you don’t have to respond immediately, give yourself a minute or two to think . . . ”  I’ve used it many times but even so, sometimes I really have to focus on the holding pattern.

       As old as we get, we are constantly learning and evolving.  How encouraging.