Excuse my long absence, please. December has been a very busy month for me. I just got back from a 4 day mini-vacation in North Carolina. Did a little skiing, and saw some beautiful countryside, replete with gorgeous, snow-capped mountains, icicle-covered trees, flowing creeks, deer and cows grazing, log cabins and old farms with big rolls of hay strewn about. I got a surprise grand finale this morning, when I woke up to a luminous, red sunrise over a nearby mountain range.
As I said in a recent post (if you can call any of them recent at this point), I have a lot to say about associations and assumptions. A very large part of our lives is controlled by them, yet they are mostly groundless. This vacation was a prime example. I had so many negative assumptions before the trip, that did not turn out to be true. Of course, I formed some more false assertions during the trip.
For example, I was really nervous about being in such cold weather for four days. I have lived in Florida for over 8 years, and I have only been in snow for one day since. I thought I was going to freeze, especially after hearing that yesterday, it was predicted to be a high of 27 degrees, with the wind chill making it feel about 2 degrees. Well, I'm here to tell you that I was well-bundled in layers of clothes, and suffered very little. At one point my left ear lobe was getting quite cold, but that resolved itself. My feet were a little cold at one point. But I was out in that weather for over 2 hours straight, staring at the signs that said "FROSTBITE WARNING!" waiting for the ski lift, and I felt fine. I even enjoyed myself. My skiing wasn't great, but it was much better than I expected. I don't think I'd skied in over 20 years.
Before the trip, I was worried about our sleeping arrangements, because we were going to be staying in a house with 14 members of my wife's family. The house was supposed to sleep 8. My wife told me that we were going to be sharing a room with her aunt and uncle, and that we would have to sleep on an air mattress. She told me we could not bring our king size air mattress (we own two) and would have to buy a new full size one to fit in the room. When I got to the house, somehow, we had our own cozy room, which was not so small, with a sofa bed and a welcome space heater. It was a much better picture than my mind had painted.
For my final example (although I actually have several more) on the way out to the ski house, I had gotten off the road onto a very steep driveway to study my Google Map on my phone, because I thought I may have missed a turn. Ironically, I was trying to be safe, and not looking too much at the map while driving. As I pulled out of the driveway, I heard serious scraping from the bottom of the car. I got out a little later, and found a dent on the bottom of the car, and thought I might have put it there. I was all nervous about turning the car back in and having to pay for the damage. Because of the placement of the dent, I thought it was unlikely to be caught on inspection, but I had decided that I was going to disclose the damage. I wanted to take responsibility if I had, in fact, caused it. From some past incidents, though, I had learned that sometimes my assumptions that I had been responsible for damage were wrong. Recently, I thought I had caused a scratch on a car parked next to me in a parking lot, because I heard a noise as I was pulling into the spot. The owner came back to the car as I was writing a note to put on the windshield. When I showed him the scratch, he said it had already been there. Also, on this current ski trip, we had gone to this museum where they had all these different shaped bubble wands with bubble solution. One of my nephews and I were wildly waving a couple of wands, making bubbles, and we hit each others' wand. I saw a crack in one of the wands and said to him, "Aw, look what we did." He said, "No, that was already there."
At least 20 times on the 4 day trip, I worried about turning the car back in. Although my mind was trying to reason me out of disclosing the damage, I was resolved to do it. When I returned the vehicle, I told the gentleman at the counter that I wanted to show him some damage to the car. I showed him the dent, and told him that I was not sure that I had done it, but had not noticed it when I received the car. He looked at my rental form and said, "No. It was already on the damage report." He gave me my receipt, and I was on my merry way.
Bottom line, a lot of our associations and assumptions are flat out wrong. A plus B does not always equal C. Circumstantial evidence is almost worthless. It's very easy to paint a connection between one thing and another, because everything IS connected. Think six degrees of separation. But the causal connection between one thing or event and another isn't necessarily there, even though it may seem that way. That's why our court systems require a high degree of evidence to support a conviction or judgment. People have both selective and creative memories. Our minds create connections that don't exist, through assumption and association.
In Don Miguel Ruiz's book "The Four Agreements," he wrote of four agreements that he felt were most important in life to make with yourself. One of them was "NEVER MAKE ASSUMPTIONS." I have found this to be one of the most important life lessons. How many times do we create all kinds of negative stories in our minds that turn out to be totally false. Just a bunch of drama. My mind still creates these stories every day, but I DON'T BELIEVE THEM, ANYMORE! Thank you Don Miguel!!!!!!!!
Missing the Mountains Already,
Alan
