This guy Jim's car had a flat about a mile from his home. He looked in his trunk and saw that he didn't have a jack. But, he remembered that his next-door neighbor, Joe, was a car-mechanic and he would certainly own a jack: "I'll borrow his jack," Jim thought.
So, Jim left his car on the side of the road and started walking toward his neighbor's house. As he was walking, he said to himself: "If anybody has a jack, Joe does."
And, as he continued to walk, he began to think, "Hmm, Joe borrowed my lawn mower at the end of the summer--and I don't think he ever returned it." And walking on: "I'm almost positive it was Joe's dog who messed up my flower bed that time!"....And "That Joe never returned my lawn mower, I mean, that's pretty rude!"....Before long, Jim was mumbling under his breath as he walked toward's Joe's house. Finally he got to the door, rang the bell. In a moment Joe answered the door, with a big friendly smile.
Jim looked him in the eye and yelled: "And you can just keep your f***ing jack!"
Well, of course, don't most of us do this, at times? We tell ourselves a story or interpret something that we experience without considering that there may be another explanation or way to look at it. One example, for me, is the time a friend of mine seemed to see me; and, then, she walked right past me in our local coffeeshop. I began to think: "Have I offended her in some way?" "Is she not talking to me for some reason?"
A day or so later, I saw her at the local post office. So, I stopped her and said, "You know, I saw you at Starbucks a day or two go and you didn't even say hello." She explained, "I think I may have had my headset on and I was listening to a song I wanted to remember the words to. I'm sure I didn't see you or I would've said hello. Are you busy now? Let's grab a bite and have a chat."
I realize that, at times I can--and maybe you can, too-- be like the guy who went to borrow the jack. At times, I can tell myself a story, not so much based on what is happening at the moment, but on fears or insecurities I may have from the past. Before long, I may believe my own story so much, it seems as if there could be no other explanation for what it was I was telling myself.
The reason I mention this is that I think a lot of people may unwittingly use their energy in this way: telling themselves a story that isn't even true, as Jim in my jack-joke did and as I did with my friend at Starbucks. To learn this and not repeat the mistake, it is important to see our own tendency to assume (I think Oscar Wilde said it, "When you ass-u-me, you make an ass out of u and me.")For myself, I would rather avoid getting upset for no good reason. It's a bad, even if only occasional, habit, that interferes with my enjoyment of life. Now, I find if I can widen the lens of my memory and see that I have almost always been incorrect, when I've done this negative self-story-telling. And, well, it's pretty humbling (and, maybe, just a tad embarrassing, too?) to realize that not everything is about us!
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