Possibility is a very big attractant. I think we magnetically attach to it without even a thought. It’s like we’re a static cling magnet for little dust bunnies of opportunity. We pull them to us and there they are, following us wherever we go, almost impossible to get rid of. Where we go, so do our hopes, dreams, and potentialities. We want so much! For me, for you, for the world.
This is all very lovely, until the possibilities coating us start to take on actual weight. What if we invest in them, as if they were part of us? What if we take, for instance, what we hope will happen on that date with friends tonight, and load it up with detail, emotional investment, and even secondary goals that could become possible if…? We show up, and so does our idea of what is going to happen (but most definitely has not happened yet). It’s not real, because we imagined it, but it is starting to feel very real to us.
We do this so unconsciously, and so often, and so quickly, that we don’t realize how many feelings in our day have to do with completely made-up stories that we told ourselves, forgetting to put them into the future, and conditional, tense. When someone cuts us off in a line up, or in traffic, we are upset because we are already driving or living several minutes ahead of ourselves, and this event has created a small rift in our (not yet realized) timeline. We don’t like when things don’t go even a little bit as planned, and our instant rise in temper (which, hopefully, remains completely private and undetected by others), is evidence of how much we don’t like it.
It has been very helpful to me to try to recognize when I’m angry about something that has actually happened, vs something I wanted to happen, which isn’t going to, because of _______. The first scenario is objectively real and in the past and therefore can be dealt with. The second never happened, wasn’t real, and maybe was only even thought of by me. Totally subjective. Not very easy for anyone else to deal with, and really not fair to make a big issue of, by me, in the world out there, because it’s imaginary and exists in the fairy-tale place all imaginary outcomes exist within.
Imagination is really (we think) what sets us apart from most, if not all, other species. We can time travel. We can put ourselves into situations we are not actually in, and think about how it looks, feels, what would happen next, and costs/benefits of various choices of action in that scenario. We tell stories where we inhabit other people’s lives, settings, choices. We can go to the past or the future with equal ease. It’s a breathtaking ability.
Until it starts to mess with our reality.
That’s when imaginary outcomes – hopes, fantasies, ideals, potential effects of such and such a decision or action or cause – start to take on weight. They start to feel real and we start to treat them as if they are either actually happening, have happened, or will happen with certainty.
And this is where things get dangerous. We start to forget what we have told others. We start to assume that this object we are carrying has the same gravity for everyone as it does for us. We are treating an idea as if it is an event, objectively measurable and real. This is one way to “manifest” our dreams, for sure. But it can also put a terrible strain on those around us as they try to manage the weight of an invisible and un-feel-able (to them) factor in our decision making and our interactions.
I am thinking in particular of our children, surely the most vulnerable to our tendency to displace our hopes and dreams onto others. I spoke in my latest podcast about the concept of taking rocks out of our child’s backpack by selecting only one goal for them in any particular challenge. One goal is already quite heavy for some children. It’s heavy for us. Let’s not add rocks to their backpack by layering on three or four or six or eight more hopes, dreams, and plans for their day. Let’s look at our dreams, for sure. Let’s consider them as the beautiful, imaginary, fantastic stories that they are. Some, perhaps, will magically manifest into reality. But some cannot. And that’s okay. That’s not actually a loss if we don’t create a false sense of reality around them that gives us ownership of their lines and colours.
Also, and this is not nothing, let’s be careful as to who is putting a plan into whose backpack.
Really, each of us should carry our own load. We have our own potential, our own possibilities, our own “choose your own adventure.” That is a lot. Let’s let each child, each person, each someone we love and want the best for, figure out who and what and how their future will look. Let’s give them control of their own ideal outcome. Let’s suggest, envision, inspire, and encourage. And step back. And let others choose for themselves.
This is so hard! We all dream big and some of us can see so far into the future with our incredible imaginations! If only he would…if only they could…if only she saw…but that’s them. And you’re you. And I’m me. And we each have a lot to manage, what with the nature of time being so darn relentless.
So think of your goals as pretty rocks. They’re beautiful and precious, but awfully heavy. Don’t carry them with you all day. That’s too hard. Take one at a time, maybe. The one hard thing for the challenge before you. That’s probably going to make that challenge a lot more do-able. And for sure help kids take rocks out of their backpacks, rather than stuffing more in.
Possibility is amazing. Let’s not wreck it by taking its beauty as license to own it and carry it and hoard it and keep it. Let’s let it stay light and unattached to us, and yet…still possible.