Unwritten

I love the song titled Unwritten by Natsha Bedingfield the lyrics read “I’m just beginning.. the pen’s in my hand… ending unplanned”.  These lyrics are a great introduction to a TED Talk I recently watched titled  the Psychology of Your Future Self, delivered by Dan Gilbert, Harvard Psychologist, and happiness expert.

If you haven’t discovered TED Talks, you really must. They are short video lectures and they are delivered by great thinkers and amazing speakers.

This particular TED Talk discusses the inevitability of change in our lives and its impact on our perception of ourselves. Here is the link: http://bit.ly/1r9P0QR

According to Gilbert, we are all changing in significant ways all the time.  We are constantly being shaped by new experiences.  “Time is a powerful force that transforms our preferences. It reshapes our values and alters our personalities. We seem to appreciate this fact, but only in retrospect”. Only when we look backwards do we realize how much change happens in a decade. Therefore, people overestimate the stability of their current preferences and vastly underestimate the change they are likely to experience in the coming 10 years.

He says “We are walking around with a misconception that our personal history has just come to an end…  That we have just recently become the people we were always meant to be and will be for the rest of our lives”.  This got my attention, because I have been feeling just that way. Could it be that everyone else is feeling this too?

Gilbert suggests that our ease in remembering and our difficulty in imagining leaves us clinging to the assumptions of our past and completely underestimating the potential and likely change that is waiting for us all just around the bend!

I believe that a fear of change and a strong devotion to our past can limit our growth and potential.  So, it seems to me that our best and only strategy is to learn to let go of the past and to cultivate our ability to imagine a new and undiscovered future.  

Here are my three favorite ideas for letting go of your past… taken directly from an article by Cat O’Connor titled 10 Tips to Let Go of the Past & Embrace the Future.

Meditate. Find stillness, breathe. Meditation is action. Our mind is much harder to still than our body. Our lives are busy and fast paced, filled with external noise and distractions. Clarity comes from quiet. Meditation, even in small amounts, will make room for the next steps.

Understand. Take time to reflect on your own history as a third party looking in without judgment: simply observe. Understand that you are not your past. Understand that the situations and patterns and people in your life created your experiences, they didn’t create you. Knowing and understanding your past and some of your patterns will help you to recognize why you hold on to and repeat self-destructive behaviors. Understanding creates awareness; awareness helps you break the cycle.

Accept. Accept your history and the people that have been a part of your history; accept your circumstances and remember that none of these define you. Acceptance is the first step to letting go and setting yourself free. Carrying bitterness, anger or animosity burdens no one but you.

And here are three more ideas for opening your imagination…From How to Exercise an Open Mind, from WikiHow

Reflect on your own belief system. Every decision you make in life is based on your belief system. To open your mind, start to list your fundamental beliefs, and for each one ask yourself why you believe it. Then ask yourself whether you could imagine being you if you didn't exactly believe it anymore, but believed something marginally different. 

Pick a belief a week and work at it. Ask some really good friends what they believe and how they acquired their beliefs. Understand this: your belief system is absolutely unique to you; your friend's belief system is unique to them. An open mind is comfortable with differences and with using a variety of lenses to view an issue.

Push the limits of your body. By using your body in new ways, you can learn more about yourself and expand your mind.

Walk backwards through your whole house for a completely new spatial perspective (being careful not to trip over anything or fall down the stairs). Learn to do a handstand, take martial arts classes. Try some Zumba classes or learn a break dance move. Can you touch your toes? Work on it. Try skiing, snowboarding, jet skiing, hang-gliding, parasailing, surfing, and anything else that pushes the limits of your comfort zone!

Stimulate your eyes. Go to a cheap or free art gallery. Even if you think it's bad art, it can still be thought-provoking and introduce you to people with different tastes than your own. Watch movies or shows in genres that you don't normally explore. Immerse yourself in horror, anime, documentaries, stand-up comedy (Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, Louis CK, etc.), or anything else you haven’t gotten around to trying (and potentially loving). 

Dan Gilbert summed it up best by saying that   “the person you are right now is as transient, as temporary, and as fleeting as all the people you have ever been.”

So in the words of Henry David Thoreau, "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you imagined…".

No! On second thought, let’s go even further and live a life we have NEVER imagined!

image credit:dreamstime