February 3, 2016, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…Emergency Possibilities
By Darrell Gurney | Blog
“Take your mind off the problems for a moment, and focus on the positive possibilities. Consider how very much you are able to do.” –Ralph Marston
Cutting it so close to catch an 8am flight from LA to DC yesterday morning, halfway to the airport, I thought “Where’s my phone??”
Realizing it was still in my robe pocket at home, the emergency seemed monumental.
Who goes anywhere without a phone these days?? Especially for 5 days?? Calls, texts, GPS, instant online access…they all seem as important as walking and breathing.
The dilemma was crazy-making. Turn around in the early-morning, rush-hour traffic, and be late for the plane…with all the problems of rebooking, fees, etc? Or, simply go without? Wait, that’s an oxymoron: you can’t SIMPLY go without a smartphone, right?
Upon rationally determining (in my state of irrationality) that the first option wasn’t actually an option, my mind then began — under duress — to entertain possibilities.
What if this telephonic, textic, and immediate-access disconnect offered whole new openings for what could be produced this week?
That rewrite of “The Back Forty: 7 Critical Embraces for Life’s Radical Second Half”…just in time for our next course? The systems build outs and other infrastructural pieces which could be handled by computer and not by phone?
The possibilities became delectable.
Where might you similarly turn the seeming emergencies of quick change-ups in plans into your own delicious possibilities?
Got emergency possibility?
“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination.” –Albert Einstein
“Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.” –Natalie Goldberg