I was having coffee with someone yesterday, talking about some life upheaval or another, and she asked me: "What's your best case scenario?" This stumped me. Really. Stumped. Best case scenario? A life in momentary perfection? Foreign - even in the land of my imagination.
For so long, I've only allowed myself to think in the realm of worst case scenario. My philosophy has always been - if you imagine the worst, you'll never be horribly disappointed. In fact, as a teenager I convinced myself that if I could picture something happening, it wouldn't. So if you picture the worst, maybe it won't happen? That piece of superstition has stayed with me into adulthood, though I can recognize it as totally irrational. Yeah - I catch myself getting caught up in that hopeful daydream-y place sometimes, but I generally try to smack it down as quickly as it comes up.
But it occurs, suddenly, that perhaps that's cheating myself a bit. If you can't even let yourself envision the things you really want, how can you work towards them? Or further still, if you can't even allow yourself to envision those things you might really want, how do you believe you might actually deserve them?
So - renaissance project #145 - picture the happy place and see what comes of it.
I do the exact same thing with the "if I imagine the worst thing possible, it will never happen". It drives my wife crazy. She believes in only giving things energy if it is good. But we both recognize each others' needs a do our own daydreamy stuff.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the theory that says that which you think of most and talk about the most is what you create. It can be helpful to examine the lies we tell ourselves and project onto others.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - you make a good point. And it hadn't occurred that I might also be projecting my worst case philosophies on other folks. Hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteMy husband always expects the worst, and then everything always goes to crap, of course, he says, "see, I was right", but I find, like anonymous has said, that when I am positive, happy-go-lucky, things start to fall into place.
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