How real is real? How true is true? If beauty is in the mind of the beholder, is anything really and truly beautiful? A beautiful sunset may be defined differently for people with different experiences.
Our experiences exist only in our minds. Once an event is gone, it’s gone. Knock a vase off the mantle smashing it to pieces, we can glue the pieces back together but that vase is still broken. We can buy a new vase but the vase is still broken. We can melt down the glass and have a new vase created but it still is not that old vase. No matter what, we cannot undo what has been done.
Similarly, we can have the time of our lives. Try as we might, we will never be able to exactly duplicate the experience. Some real frustration and depression happens to some people because they cannot duplicate the marvelous experiences they’ve already had.
In our minds we have trash cans and photo albums. We take our bad experiences and toss them into our trash cans. We try to learn from those bad times but we throw them in the trash just the same. We also take our great times and put them into a photo album in our mind. We often tend to build these up quite a bit and they become even grander than they really were. These mental images create wonderful photo albums of memories to call upon when we need them.
Which one guides our behaviors more, our trash cans or our photo albums? I often hear statements about what people will try to avoid. They have these trash can images imbedded in their brains and they just can’t escape them. Every time they try to move forward they remember that the last time they engaged in a similar activity some bad thing happened. Therefore, they have to be very careful not to let that happen again.
Our brains move us towards where we focus. A famous example of this was the 1957 World Series. The Yankees were playing the Braves. Warren Spahn was pitching for the Braves in game 4. The Yankees led the series 2 games to 1. The Yankees were batting in the top of the 9th. With two outs and 2 men on, Braves leading 4 to 1, manager Fred Haney gave some advice to Spahn. That advice, don’t throw the ball high and outside to Howard! Spahn tried to block the thought from his mind but all he could think of was high and outside. That’s where the ball went and Howard hit a home run; game tied.
After that fateful pitch, Spahn talked about the power of positive thinking. Identify with where you want to go and you’ll have better chance of getting there. Focus on where you don’t want to go and you’ll never get where you want to go! Warren Spahn went on to win 363 games; more than any other left handed pitcher in the history of baseball. But he believed his greatest legacy was not his victories but the attitude he shared with other. Be positive about where you want to go and you’ll greatly increase your chances of getting there!
