Are You In The Wrong Room?

My 81 year old mother has been staying with me recently and one of the continuing challenges for her is to find the right door to her bedroom.  I must admit that it isn't an easy thing to determine.  I have a long white hallway with six possible white doors all of which we keep closed in order to keep numerous cats and dogs from getting into things they shouldn't.  She always walks hesitantly down the hallway, finally locating a possible room, opens the door and... sometimes finds herself in my daughter's bedroom, sometimes a closet and sometimes (hooray!) her own room.  Chronically challenged by directions myself, I can empathize with the difficulty of the task.  One recent afternoon, my son-in-law was using the printer in my daughter's bedroom.  While he is printing, he hears the door to the bedroom open and in steps my mom, obviously lost again.  "You got the wrong room," he points out to her.  She laughs and says to him, "Yeah, you too..."

It's all in our perspective isn't it?  How easy it is to become set in a routine way of looking at the world, a problem or even ourselves.  Before you accept the status quo, make sure you first ask ourself if there is another, perhaps better way to interpret your 'reality'.  Can you see it through someone else's eyes?  Can you eliminate common assumptions and create a new way to view things?  There is rarely one right way to view the world, so make sure your mind is open to new creative possibilities. You may just find out that there's more than one person in the wrong room...

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.Dream. Discover. Mark  Twain

Running in the Bathtub

I was teaching a kindergarten class on safety rules and when I asked the students to give me some examples of rules they followed to stay safe, they eagerly volunteered. "Wear your seat belt in the car." "Don't run in the halls." "Never play with fire." My all time favorite though, was the child who volunteered, "NEVER run in the bathtub."

Don't you just love the unpredictability of children? Don't you love their fresh quirky perceptions of the world? After all, it is a good rule, don't you think? What happens to adults that we lose this spontaneity? We steer our lives toward the mundane, the routine. How we limit ourselves when we do this! It's as though we could be seeing the world in color but we restrict it to black and white. We could see the panoramic view but we choose binoculars instead. Is it comfort? Fear of the unfamiliar? What a challenge it is to see the world through new eyes each day. In order to do this we must first put aside our preconceived notions and rules. We must look for and expect the unusual, the extraordinary. We must be open to new experiences and visions.

A favorite quote of mine by Muriel Chen is, "We cannot discover new oceans unless we have the courage to lose sight of the shore." How true this is! Lately my new ocean has been publishing a children's book. What a challenge this is for me as I step nervously into the world of self-publishing. This is definitely a new ocean for me and the voice of caution is continuously in my ear, "What if it is not successful?" "What if I spend too much?" "What if the product doesn't look good?" What if's haunt me. Yet I am also exhilerated by the sense of moving forward. I have sat on these stories for years while I tried to determine how to get them published, illustrated, on the market. It is an awesome feeling to finally have the finish line in my sights. Though I have not finished in as timely a manner as I would have wished, the journey has been very enlightening. I have learned a lot that will help me publish the next story in a much more efficient manner. In order to do this though, I have had to lose sight of the conventional method of publishing and move into uncharted oceans. I have had to lose sight of the comfortable shore of my daily job and take on a new role, a new perspective. Sometimes it is excitingly new! Other times it is scary and ill fitting. Many times I have to quiet the critical, doomsday voice inside me and wake up the encouraging positive voice instead.

What about you? Where in your world do you need to change your perceptions, see through new eyes, challenge your status quo? Are you charting new oceans? Or are you still stuck clinging to the familiar shore and running in the bathtub?

Seeing With New Eyes

It was right-under-my-nose and if it'd-been-a-snake-it-would-have-bitten-me. The lunch box that I carry everyday to work was missing and I had looked for it everywhere. Or so I thought. Actually, it took me a day or so to realize it was truly missing. I just thought it was in one of the usual places where it resides. When it wasn't in the usual spot on the dining room table, I assumed I left it in the car. When I didn't find it in the car, I assumed I left it at work. When I couldn't find it at work, I started again looking for it in the dining room and so I went searching for it in this circular motion for a couple of days. I looked all over the dining room, the car and my lunch spot at work, repeatedly, daily, frequently. I discussed it with my co-workers that I eat with. I mulled over the possibilities with increasing frustration and bewilderment. How could it have disappeared into thin air? Had I been in a total mental fog and left it somewhere exotic? Where else could it be? I expanded my search from the dining room to the nearby pantry and from the car to the garage with no luck. I had just about resigned myself to buying another lunch box when I was clearing the table in the breakfast area one day and saw it sitting on the floor by one of the chairs. I had walked by this table, eaten at this table and cooked near this table for several days and failed to spot the bag. I had spent countless minutes either looking for it or contemplating where to look for it. How could I miss something so obvious?

I think this happen all the time when we use preconceived notions or patterns to try and solve problems. I kept looking for the bag in one of the three places I assumed it would have been left. When it wasn't there, rather than expanding my search area to somewhere new, I simply started over, looking more thoroughly in the same spot: dining table, car, work area. Here's the funny thing-I didn't have to think far outside the norm to solve the problem. How many times is this the case? In trying to solve a problem we resort to re-visiting the same tired solutions when the real solution is found by simply stepping outside our usual parameters. Sometimes we don't have to travel far. Sometimes we simply turn our gaze in a different direction. What are you missing? Could the solution be right-under -your -nose the whole time?


The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust