A few years back, I was sitting in a waiting room reading a book called e2: Nine Do-It-Yourself Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality. Truthfully, the whole book is shaky from a science-based perspective and so when it suggested the reader choose a color of car to count for the next 24 hours (to demonstrate that we find what we’re looking for) I chose lime green just to be contrarian.
Then I chastised myself: “At least try to let it work,” and so I switched my answer to yellow, a car color I know I’ve seen plenty.
Once I left that waiting room, I had an hour-long drive to get home, during which time I saw FIVE lime green cars. Five. While driving from a town of 22,000 people to a town of 500 people. Five.
And not a single yellow car.
Perhaps not science-based but certainly evidence-based…
Truly, I feel like a fetus when I consider what I know to be true about this life, existence, universe – and getting younger by the day. It’s a vulnerable feeling to release certainty and instead open ourselves to possibility. It’s like releasing the ground beneath our feet and risking floating away like a helium balloon slipping from the hands of a child.
On the other hand, the farther we float away from any sense of entitlement, the more we recognize our power to make change in our own lives, to decide where we will aim our energy and, yes, our focus. And that? That opens up awareness of a whole new diversity of opportunity and options.
For example, I can choose to see unfortunate things that happen in my life as something terrible happening to me, or I can see them as something that is simply happening, from which I can learn and grow as I process and heal.
I can choose to see the people around me as two-dimensional landscape in my way or as the complex, multifaceted humans they are, people dealing with their own array of opportunities and challenges, be they white, black, or brown; gay, straight, or queer; cis-gender, transgender, or gender non-conforming; Christians, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, or any other number of beliefs or lack thereof.
I can choose to expect life to be a painful slog (and then write off the good stuff as flukes) or I can choose to expect life to be a joyful adventure (and then see the painful bits as opportunities to grow and develop greater appreciation for the good stuff).
The question remains, though, why no yellow cars? I was just as prepped to see those.
Some might say they’re just not on trend right now while lime green is on an uptick. Some might say it’s a characteristic of memory to capture these kinds of extraordinary experiences and let the mundane float into the backs of our minds.
But me? I’ll take the reminder to be thoughtful about my focus along with the fun of happenstance and go on my merry way.
My very merry way.