That QUICK (snap) …and a stressful story is born!

photo credit: 666isMONEY <3

Here’s a ques­tion for you; Are you absolutely SURE that your assump­tions about life are right?

Recently, a friend was talk­ing to me about an idea that he was excited about. Sud­denly a fly buzzed by. Uncon­sciously, I waved the fly away from my face and my friend stopped in mid-sentence and said, “What? … you don’t like it?” (refer­ring to his pro­posal) In other words, he took my dis­tracted ges­ture as a sign of disapproval.

This seem­ingly triv­ial exam­ple illus­trates how easy it is to jump to a con­clu­sion about real­ity that, in fact, may have noth­ing to do with it! Just that quick, we can be hijacked by our minds into believ­ing a neg­a­tive, unhappy story. In the time it took to wave a fly away, my pre­cious friend had decided that I didn’t like what he was saying!

But it is not just my friend who engages in such hasty reac­tions, we all do it.

We see, hear, expe­ri­ence some­thing and imme­di­ately decide what it means. We then project that mean­ing ( our story) onto the exter­nal sit­u­a­tion and call it “what really hap­pened.” (I find it humor­ous that we tend to equate such men­tal activ­ity with being “smart!” )

This inter­pret­ing and pro­ject­ing of story describes well the nature of the human mind. We are “story mak­ers.” And what’s amaz­ing is that most of us spend our whole lives doing it (mak­ing up sto­ries about real­ity and then act­ing as if they are true) and it never occurs to us that we’re doing it! It would be hilar­i­ous if it were not so painful.

Back to my friend & his quick reaction …

What if he had not asked me for imme­di­ate clar­i­fi­ca­tion? What if he had “assumed” my hand ges­ture was meant to wave him away, instead of the fly? What direc­tion do you imag­ine our con­ver­sa­tion might have taken then?

But because he DID ask, he was able to “clear” his presumptions/story and pro­ceed unim­peded by his mis­taken “story.” We, too, must learn to stop and ask the ques­tion, “What??? Is what I tell myself I’m see­ing what I’m really seeing?”

Again I ask, “Do you absolutely KNOW that your assumptions/“story” about your present sit­u­a­tion is true?”

In the inter­est of peace it may be worth a closer investigation.