The Truth & Other Lies We Tell Ourselves

Chapter 1 – The Power to Create “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” – George Bernard Shaw You are amazing. Yes, You. The person holding this book, reading its words and taking their time to do so. You are amazing and I want you to know that I love something about you. It is a truly special reason. It is because you are unique. You are an anomaly. There is nothing quite like you in this world we are living within. Of all of the people in all of the world, there is no one, not anywhere that is like you. You, by your nature, are an amazing gift. What I love about you is that you make me wonder. You make me think and ponder the world, the heavens and all that lay or could lay between. Wonder is such a powerful and amazing gift. I wonder sometimes if there is anything better? Let’s imagine something together. Let’s imagine you are watching two family members. They are sitting close on a log in the woods. They are right next to each other on that log and it begins to rain unexpectedly hard and fast. You watch them both jump up off their seats and run for shelter out of the rain. Observing this situation I would say those two family members got caught in the rain and they shared the experience. To one level, this is true that there were two people that had the rain unexpectedly hit them at the same time and they ran for shelter, but on an entirely different level it is not. Let’s remember you are 100% unique to this planet. There is no other you. So, when you experience something, you provide the meanings to those experiences. As one family member sat and felt the rain, the first drop was cold and unexpected. It shocked them as they sat there. They immediately thought of how their clothes would get soaked, their hair would be a mess and they would be uncomfortable and unfashionable for the remainder of the day. They were upset about the rain. The other family member felt the first drop of rain unexpectedly and the first drop was cold. It shocked them. They immediately thought, “how nice.” “How nice this rain came and distracted me. It reminded me I was focused on some bad things happening at work or at home and I needed the distraction. It almost seems like the rain was a gift. I needed that. I am grateful for the rain”. When asked what happened that day the first family member states, “it was a great day until the rain came and then it ruined everything. I was sitting there relaxing thinking about going out with my friends and then the rain came and ruined my clothes, my hair and then I had to try to go home find something else to wear, redo my hair and by the time I was able to do all that it was too late to go out so I ended up doing nothing and it was a terrible day”. When asked what happened that day the second family member states, it was a great day. “I was sitting there and I was thinking about all this pressure at work and I was feeling pretty crummy. Then, all of a sudden it started pouring out of nowhere. It shocked me out of my trance and I ran with my family member in the rain looking for shelter. It was a fun experience and it reminded me to stop being so serious, have fun, enjoy the people you are with and hey, maybe as the saying goes even dance in the rain every once in a while.” It amazes me that two people, who in this scenario are from the same family, can share an experience and yet have completely different experiences. How does this happen? Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever had an experience and recounted it either positively or negatively? Has an experienced changed over the years on how you reflect on it? Did you think of it as a negative at that time in your life? However, now as you reflect you see it as a true blessing and a positive? Guess what? It is all your fault. I know. I do not typically like pointing blame, but you are going to have to own this. Here is why I believe this to be true. The difference between these family members, aside from their uniqueness to the world, is their interpretation of what happened to them. Now I am not talking about what actually happened on a physical plane, I am speaking on an interpretative plane. For instance, two people get tattoos. One states, it hurt so bad I could barely take it. The other states, it was annoying, but it wasn’t that bad. Then good ol’ justification and reasoning needs to come into play. “Well, you must have a higher pain tolerance than I do”. “I hear it hurts more where I got it”. “I have sensitive skin”. “I didn’t eat any sugar before mine”. “I was dehydrated”. “Women have a higher pain tolerance then men”. It would seem that it makes sense that we have to find a reason for things. In every case the reasoning is simple. We experience a stimulus. We create a dialogue of this experience. We engage our senses. You felt something, you smelled something, you tasted something, you saw something and/or you heard something. Now we begin to enrich the experience with an explanation of that experience. We want to tie those senses down to the experience, so we describe It felt amazing, it smelled a little funky, it tasted sweet, it looked cool and it sounded loud.