Changing my life, to change my results.
Are you letting early interpretations of the world to shape and control your destiny? Most of us do, it seems only natural.
In fact. that is how our elders teach us to fit in to their world.
We need to take our experiences and frame them in a way that makes us stronger and makes life work for us. (As usual-within the terms of the law and mores of your society.)
Sometimes I think Mars or another habitable planet, would be a good idea, I would want to first there though, and to live forever.
Firstly, a story:-
“That’s impossible,” they said on the phone “She was found dead this morning in the office. She had been dead since Friday night.”
This was the beginning and the end of my crazy summer working for the government.
There were lots of things I didn't enjoy about working there. My job was strange. I was working in a tall building with hardly any windows. The pay was low and the people I was working with did not appear to be happy.
One of the strangest things about my experience working there was the group of people who I shared the office with. Every day, an older very large woman would come in with a very young man, and they would sit in the office with me all day. They would do nothing but spend their time playing games on the computer, eating, and looking at me. I never saw them talk to anyone else, or in fact leave their chairs. As far as I knew, they did nothing.
When I would answer the phone or type on the keyboard they would seem annoyed. “Have to answer that phone faster,” one would say. “Yeh good bl....y job!” the other would follow on.
As well as taking calls from other divisions, I was involved in research projects that just made no sense to me. One of them involved a series of unrelated questions about battery powered cars exploding, The job, the people, the whole setting… not much of it was appealing. I looked forward to escaping each day. I worried I would become like the woman who was found dead at her desk.
Until, halfway through my 3 month tenure,- my boss wanted me to go and live in his house while he and his family went on vacation, and take care of their parrot. Great I thought - free rent, big TV, bar fridge, comfy house, a tame friend - I had wonderful visions,
Not to be, unfortunately.
I got to move,- into his basement;- where I was surrounded by boxes and a collection of old (empty) bottles. Despite the surroundings, the living conditions in the basement were much better than the cheap motel I had landed in a few weeks ago, when I first had come to town.
I was now living in a basement surrounded by old bottles and boxes of who knew really what, with a noisy parrot upstairs in the main room.
I remember the phone ringing in the house late one night, and I rushed upstairs from the basement to grab it. It was a my brother, whom I'd not spoken to for 6 months, as he was working in the desert. There was a delay in the communication because he was calling on his satellite phone.
I told him, I was not interested in working for the government, the pay was low and that the work was crazy and seemed pointless. I'll never forget what he said to me.
“Isn’t this but the most you can expect out of your life? If you do this, you will have really succeeded.”
For me, this was not what I wanted in my life, he was saying it was. This was nothing like I wanted.
My idea of what it meant to be employed was much much more than this. Had I chosen to believe and accept his words, I might have spent my whole life doing something that would have made me an extra in Pink Floyd's musical "The Wall".
Regular fixed pay, but without a chance of developing my skills outside the block walls. And seemingly doomed to life in a seedy motel, or a basement.
I quickly created a reference for myself that the worst possible thing that could happen to me was to work for the government. I had had such a strange experience, enhanced by the basement life. Working for the government had gone from being my dream to my nightmare.
This makes no sense, of course. our references are what control how we think about things.
People, like my brother, provide us with references as to how we may choose to view our lives, and we can either accept them or deny them.
His implying that this was the best I could expect for myself made me furious. I didn't want to be judged for being part of the government world as I experienced it.
When my tenure had ended, I left and I tried to get as far away from a government career as possible.
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Are you allowing early interpretations of the world to shape and control your destiny? Most of us do, it seems only natural.
We need to take our experiences and frame them in a way that makes us stronger and makes life work for us.
One of the saddest things that can happen to a person is to be abused when they are young. Each person reacts differently to the experience. One can either protect yourself from it, try to numb the feelings, or accept it as an event that happened before. Perhaps a good example,of positive response- is the public story of Nelson Mandela.
Follows is a quote from a famous musician....
"This experience was one of the best things I have ever gone through. I have never given in to any kind of self-pity for longer than two minutes since then. I realized I can solve my own problems. It showed me that what I thought was my own hell was nothing compared with the hell of others. I have taken that 21-year-old with me throughout my life. He has helped me through the deaths of friends, family matters, personal-relationship issues......"The most important things we have in our lives are references.
What determines the quality of our lives is how we evaluate situations.
I think of my early experience with the government. I formed personal beliefs about what the government was like and used this to propel myself away from it.
The references you have for the way the world is, will impact everything that happens to you, and will shape your life.
Your references do not need to be only things that have happened in the past. They can also be references you set up for yourself and what will happen in your future.
The often told story of Sony.
When Sony first started marketing radios in the United States in the 1950s, Bulova offered to buy 100,000 units, but insisted they be marketed under the Bulova brand name. This was to be the largest order Sony had ever received and would give the floundering company money to grow and prosper.
At the time, Sony co-founder Akio Morita barely had any money. Morita was firm he did not want to accept the order and told headquarters that he was not going to take it. Headquarters thought he was crazy.
When Morita told Bulova about his decision, they stated, “Our company name is a famous brand name that has taken over 50 years to establish. Nobody has ever heard of your brand name. Why not take advantage of ours?”
Morita remained steadfast in his views and refused to accept the order.
His reply to Bulova: “Fifty years ago, your brand name must have been just as unknown as our name is today. I am here with a new product, and I am taking the first step for the next fifty years of my company. Fifty years from now I promise you that our name will be just as famous as your company name is today.”
We use references to give us certainty about the way things are.
When Thomas Edison was designing the light bulb and failing again and again, he told himself, and others- he was one step closer to creating the light bulb each time.
My personal thinking is -"oh well that way didn't work."
When you look at your past in a way that empowers you, every single day is a new opportunity for growth. When you look at your past in this way, you may realize the worst days of your life were actually your best.
Always link the meaning to your experiences that will strengthen you.
Stand guard at the door of your mind. Do not let your past represent something negative that can hurt you now. Not many of us have had perfect life experiences.
There is in fact no limit to your life except the limits you impose on it. (You may have to move away sometimes). Your future and the world are wide open to you.
Try to look at everything you’ve done in the past as a powerful lesson that’s making you stronger and better every day. Never be limited by your own mind. Allow your mind to interpret the world for your benefit, and not your detriment.
Once again: Your life is shaped by the reference points through which you experience the world.You must learn to take these experiences and frame them in a way that makes you stronger. This is really very easy in practice.
Keep reading this site.
pic courtesy of Public Domain Images
