In the Blink of an Eye

Everything can change in the blink of an eye. Most people know this and some spend a great deal of time dwelling on it. One day you’re gainfully employed and the next, you’re laid off. One minute you’re driving down the highway and the next you’re in a terrible wreck. Out of the blue, the house needs major repairs or you contract a serious illness. Yes, life can change in the blink of an eye.

The funny thing is it can change for the better just as quickly and easily as it can change for the worse. We seem to think that the bad things happen to us all of a sudden and out of the blue but the good things have to be planned for and slowly achieved. Winning the lottery isn’t planned for. You buy a ticket and you win. Just like that, you’re a millionaire. Falling in love isn’t something you plan for, either. It usually hits you so fast you don’t even know what happened. How about your best friend? Did you plan on meeting him or her?

The good and the bad have an equal chance of taking place; we just tend to focus on the bad, since those are the things we don’t want. The paradox of this, however, is the more you fight the things you don’t want, the more attention and energy you give them. It is a basic principle of psychology that the more we focus on something, the more likely we are to experience it. For instance, if you place a 2 x 4 on the ground, you can probably walk from one end of it to the other without trouble. Now suspend that same 2 x 4 fifty feet off the ground and see what happens. Odds are, you're focusing so much on not falling that you're probably going to lose your balance.

I'm not saying you shouldn’t plan to avoid the bad things. For instance, I’m not saying you shouldn’t put on your seatbelt when you get in the car but I am saying you shouldn’t spend the entire drive fretting about getting into a wreck.

Wonderful things happen to us every day but we’re often so busy planning to ward off the terrible things we imagine might occur that we hardly take notice. We’ve conditioned ourselves to be so fearful of what might happen that we walk through life in a sort of stupor, mentally preparing for the next anticipated tragedy. Once one has been averted, we instantly jump to the next. In this mindset, we blind ourselves to the good and enjoyable things that are happening right now. I’m sure you’ve seen people who sit brooding over some concern of theirs while everyone around them is enjoying themselves. And what does this brooding produce? 9 times out of 10 the things we spend so much time worrying about either don’t happen or aren’t nearly as bad as we imagined they would be.

To me, it’s a bit strange that we, as a society, have determined that the occurrence of negative things is more likely and more realistic that the occurrence of positive things. Most people would probably say you have a greater chance of getting laid off than you do retiring early with plenty of money. Most might say you have a greater chance of getting divorced than staying married the rest of your life. And these people would undoubtedly point to statistics and facts and say, “See? Here’s proof.” But why aren’t they pointing to the other side of the coin? Why aren’t they pointing to the people who do stay married or those who do retire early with plenty of money? Even if they are siding with the statistical majority, there are still examples of the opposite, which proves it can be done. If, for instance, you’re saying, “50 percent of all marriages end in divorce.” I can say, “50 percent stay married. How do you know I (or you) won’t be in that 50 percent that stays together?"

Remember that everything can change in the blink of an eye but the door can swing both ways equally. Instead of focusing on all the bad things that could happen, why not spend more time thinking about all the good things you’d like to have happen. What makes the negative any more likely than the positive?

Blessings,

Jason Hundley