"Bubbling up in our own good time-- online."
Groundwaters Publishing, LLC
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Volume 7 Issue 3
Page 4
Page 4
As I write this, I have just opened an email from Pat Edwards asking if I was going
to do a piece for this issue. Wow, I thought, there’s so much going on. I responded
with an email saying I would work on one, not knowing if it was possible. It is just a
few days after the horrendous tragedy in Japan, I’m working with taxes, putting
together bylaws for a new nonprofit and sitting in my home office surrounded by piles
of stuff I should have done before now. How can I begin to get my mind around a
Philosopher’s Corner piece? There is so much other stuff vying for my attention …
The timing is interesting. Pat’s email came after almost two very productive
days, days in which I was somehow focused and things just seemed to be flowing
well. I seem to go in spurts. There are days in which I flounder around in a bit of a
stupor and then something clicks – like it did yesterday – and several difficult things I
had been avoiding somehow seemed possible. You know what? They were.
At the very core of my being, I am an optimist; I know that much more is possible.
After many decades of wrestling with possibilities, potential and the reality of my
struggle, I have realized that the primary difference between what is possible and
what is not is simply a decision. Deciding to try and then acting upon that decision
opens wide the portals of possibility.
From perhaps a more metaphysical perspective, it is not the effort that makes
the difference, it’s the willingness to make the effort. That’s about being, the state of
mind that facilitates the doing. It’s a head-game. The mind shift from stupor to
sensing possibilities is the stuff of thought. The sages and saints have long said that
everything begins as a thought. Remember that old story about the Little Engine That
Could? It was driven up and over the mountain by the power of a thought … “I think I
can, I think I can, I think I can,” and in the end, it could and it did. Possibilities are
created by simple thoughts, thoughts that set the stage for accomplishment.
In spite of all of the stuff going on in our lives and all around us, I have the sense
that we live in a world of infinite possibilities. Looking back over the years, I can see
so many things that were once impossible. Clearly and perhaps most often,
impossibility is little more than an illusion. Someone decides that “it” just might be
possible and makes the decision to try. Possibility thinking has changed lives and
yes, even changed the world in innumerable ways.
I think I’ll look back over this bit of rambling and see if it is perhaps worth sending
to Pat for inclusion in the upcoming issue … it just might be possible that I can put a
checkmark alongside another thing that needed doing. Who knows, I just might
make it up and over the mountains of my life.
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can …
to do a piece for this issue. Wow, I thought, there’s so much going on. I responded
with an email saying I would work on one, not knowing if it was possible. It is just a
few days after the horrendous tragedy in Japan, I’m working with taxes, putting
together bylaws for a new nonprofit and sitting in my home office surrounded by piles
of stuff I should have done before now. How can I begin to get my mind around a
Philosopher’s Corner piece? There is so much other stuff vying for my attention …
The timing is interesting. Pat’s email came after almost two very productive
days, days in which I was somehow focused and things just seemed to be flowing
well. I seem to go in spurts. There are days in which I flounder around in a bit of a
stupor and then something clicks – like it did yesterday – and several difficult things I
had been avoiding somehow seemed possible. You know what? They were.
At the very core of my being, I am an optimist; I know that much more is possible.
After many decades of wrestling with possibilities, potential and the reality of my
struggle, I have realized that the primary difference between what is possible and
what is not is simply a decision. Deciding to try and then acting upon that decision
opens wide the portals of possibility.
From perhaps a more metaphysical perspective, it is not the effort that makes
the difference, it’s the willingness to make the effort. That’s about being, the state of
mind that facilitates the doing. It’s a head-game. The mind shift from stupor to
sensing possibilities is the stuff of thought. The sages and saints have long said that
everything begins as a thought. Remember that old story about the Little Engine That
Could? It was driven up and over the mountain by the power of a thought … “I think I
can, I think I can, I think I can,” and in the end, it could and it did. Possibilities are
created by simple thoughts, thoughts that set the stage for accomplishment.
In spite of all of the stuff going on in our lives and all around us, I have the sense
that we live in a world of infinite possibilities. Looking back over the years, I can see
so many things that were once impossible. Clearly and perhaps most often,
impossibility is little more than an illusion. Someone decides that “it” just might be
possible and makes the decision to try. Possibility thinking has changed lives and
yes, even changed the world in innumerable ways.
I think I’ll look back over this bit of rambling and see if it is perhaps worth sending
to Pat for inclusion in the upcoming issue … it just might be possible that I can put a
checkmark alongside another thing that needed doing. Who knows, I just might
make it up and over the mountains of my life.
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can …
| Possibilities By Jimminy Cricket |