The significance of an off-hand remark made at a group lunch didn’t hit me until later.
The remark? “Tea is my favorite but I gave it up because it stains my cups.”
What hit me?
How we sometimes deprive ourselves of simple pleasures for inconsequential reasons we’ve elevated to extreme status. Why do we save things for special days or events that sometimes never happen?
Holy moly, the power of blind spots!
Intrigued, and because I know her well, I double-backed with my lunch buddy to learn more.
“Aggie, I’m curious about your remark at lunch the other day that you don’t drink tea anymore. I thought you loved trying out new flavors.”
“I do enjoy that, but I can’t tolerate stained cups and I don’t have the time to hand scrub them.”
“When did the stained cups start to be a problem?”
“Right after we re-did the kitchen and bought new white dinnerware.”
“What color were your dishes before the remodel?”
“Black.” Aggie smiled as the realization of what she was doing hit her. “Let’s walk down to the department store so I can buy some black mugs!”
Aggie now tells a delightful story about herself: how she regained a simple pleasure by learning how to work around the things that don’t matter and to value those that do.
Have you had a similar “Aggie moment” of self-realization?
Thoughts about blind spots
Has the dark shadow really disappeared? Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear? Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you. ~Haruki Murakami
Seeing-is-believing is a blind spot in man’s vision. ~R. Buckminster Fuller
All abilities are paid for with disabilities. perfect health may entail the heavy toll of bovine stupidity. Insight into one area involves blind spots in another. ~William S. Burroughs
Because your brain uses information from the areas around the blind spot to make a reasonable guess about what the blind spot would see if only it weren’t blind, and then your brain fills in the scene with this information. That’s right, it invents things, creates things, makes stuff up! It doesn’t consult you about this, doesn’t seek your approval. It just makes its best guess about the nature of the missing information and proceeds to fill in the scene. ~Daniel Gilbert
We have to have a version of our own story that we keep telling ourselves that allows us to get up in the morning. This version of yourself is what you sell to yourself. I think it necessarily includes … not looking at certain things. Everybody’s got some blind spot. ~Steven Soderbergh
Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will. ~Bono
Image source: morgueFile
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My “old” tea cup was the backyard lawn. It needed help 🙂 So we worked at it and it became the new tea cup (more grass!). But when the children (and their friends) tried to play their seemingly endless games of wiffle ball, the grass was in danger (stains on the tea cup, as it were). Thought about “banning” the games (no tea), but then thought better 🙂 Back to the old tea cup (less grass) with the pleasure of seeing them play!
What a great story and example of how lovely green grass nearly got in the way of loads of fun!