This morning, as almost all Saturday mornings, I drove the forty-five miles at 7a.m. to take my mom to get her hair done because she is afraid to take the door-to-door senior dropoff at $1.70 a trip. I am tired, and a bit cranky. I’m feeling slightly unappreciated and a little used, even though I willingly volunteer. I really don’t have the time. And I really don’t have the extra money. With gas prices at almost $5.00 a gallon, it costs me $20 a trip, $80 a month. I’m also tired. Mother spent the night with me last night. She doesn’t need much sleep. We were up way too late, past midnight. Then, we were up at the crack of dawn, so she had time to dress and eat breakfast, take her pills and follow her morning routine. I love her dearly, but by now I am a little grumpy.
The beauty salon is on a busy, heavily-trafficked street. It is just a little shop. I can’t say how many times we’ve driven right passed it and missed it. We usually park right in front. There are two meters. They are usually empty. I usually pull right into the slot, pull out her handicap sticker, her wheel chair and escort her into the shop. Today, we are late. It’s my fault. I couldn’t get my act together. SO…I pull up and both slots are taken. There is a driveway just past the two parking spots. I double park in the driveway, unload my mom, get her into the shop because I am panicked. NOW, we are really late. What if she misses her appointment?
As I come out of the shop to retrieve my illegally-parked car, (I am now slightly calmer), I look at the street. There are three empty parking spaces. Apparently, in spite of my expectations, there were three spots not two in front of the shop. There are also two empty spaces on the other side of the driveway where I illegally parked. Why hadn’t I seen this?
Our emotional state, our frame-of-mind, our preset conclusions, all effects our perceptions. In my mind there were only two spaces! So, that was all I saw. I was feeling slightly anxious (we were late) and I was overly tired. So the manner in which I took in information was flawed, leading to a flawed conclusion.
I think about this. Why don’t we teach perception in school? Why don’t we point out that sometimes what we perceive as ‘fact’ is influenced by our emotional state at the moment? Instead, we treat data as law (except even law is susceptible to interpretation). I think about all the information we feed children. Never do we include the consciousness that human perception definitely influences all information, including history, science and current events. Don’t we think this is important?
About Me
- Resa Steindel Brown
- I am the eternal optimist. I think we can fix everything. Twenty years ago I discovered we were all born brilliant. As educator/parent, I see that it is our job to help our children connect to the passion that leads them to their own brilliance. In fact, it’s a good idea if we all connected to our gifts, developed them and lived a creative life using these talents. I have created schools and run programs that have done so since 1987. It works! When we look for our children’s interests and create an environment that supports their exploration and innate creativity, amazing things happen. Children have published books, started businesses, trained with the Hamburg Ballet-Opera, become systems analysts for Warner Bros., built, invented and created in the real world—all at early ages. We never pushed a child, but we never held a child back. When we follow our children’s natural interests and help them develop the talent that arises out of these interests, they become kind, compassionate, cooperative and feel fulfilled because they have some choice in the direction of their day. Our only issue was having enough hours in a day to do everything that inspired us. But what glorious days!
No comments:
Post a Comment