It Is All Made Up

In one of my favorite books, The Art of Possibility, written by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, there is a chapter titled It’s All Invented. The authors say, “It’s all invented anyway so we might as well invent a story or a framework of meaning that enhances our quality of life and the life of those around us.”¹

The way you perceive things is how you see your life. You encounter something through your senses and then you begin to interpret those sensations based on your culture, experience, mindset, and even how your day is going. Events occur every day that you can interpret as being good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, pleasurable or painful. Your interpretations are meant to help you survive and stay safe. However, they may not tell you the whole picture. You tend to see what you are looking for. So, as the Zanders point out, we have the capacity to invent a different story, one that allows us to shift our framing of what is happening or happened.

I have had many clients and friends that were unhappy in their jobs. Their careers were not as satisfying as they wanted them to be, and they did not feel like they were living life to their potential.  However, when they looked at their values (checklist) and realized that their family was at the top of their list, they realized their job was supporting their family in many ways, which was hugely important to them. By changing the frame they viewed their job through, it then became something they valued instead of their original story.

Try creating an awareness of your first reaction to situations as they arise. Open your eyes to a different perspective so you may begin to see things differently. Look for patterns in the way you respond to people and situations, and challenge those patterns. By choosing how you label events you will see that there is more than one way to look at a situation, and decide to create a different story about what happened. This can change the world as you know it.

We have a choice on how we view our daily life. We can choose to see things as mundane or meditative, as inconsequential or essential, as boring or nuanced; it just depends on how we look at them and what we are looking for. Observing our thoughts, we begin to realize that we regularly make up stories and interpret events based on our instinct to survive, our conditioning, and predispositions. We are constantly making the stories up as we go through our days and years, and the stories we are making up determine how we view ourselves, others, and the world. In the end, it is all made up.

Exercise:

Next time you find yourself “in a bad mood,” close your eyes and enjoy 2 or 3 deep breaths, setting aside your thoughts for a few moments. Then, as you open your eyes, give yourself permission to start your day over. You can start your day over as many times as you like!

^{1 https://www.amazon.com/Art-Possibility-Transforming-Professional-Personal/dp/0142001104}