Changing Perceptions

Sometimes we can't avoid but look back at our past. We may have regrets, gratitude, and all sorts about it. But my story will focus on the negative and the dark side of our past.

I thought I've had a happy childhood. Good school, good neighborhood, good house, able to play outside, got most of what I wanted. I was happy, until I became an adult, and realized I'm not happy of what turned out of my life. Don't get me wrong, I was happy growing up, but when I did grow up, I realized a lot of things. When I was in college, I'd deal with jerks and user "friends," at work I dealt with bully supervisors and seniors, in life, I had to deal with a lot of changes. I know it sounds weak, but it did a lot of damage in me in ways I could not explain.

These negative events in my life has made a huge impact in my life and my personality. Now, I am trying to make those negative events into positive, memorable thoughts. How? By creating Life Events out of them. And what are Life Events, I'll get to it in a while.

The brain is such a wonderful organ. It consists of billions of nerves with different specialized functions. One of those functions is memory. Imagine if we couldn't remember anything, it would be disastrous. Let's say you're on your way to work, park your car, when your done, you can't remember where you parked your car or how to get home. Or you plan to go shopping, hop into your car and actually forget what you were supposed to do, or if you do get to the mall, you forget what you're supposed to buy. But do we forget people's names or faces, yes, and it's normal. It's normal because not all people we meet leave marks in our brains, not unless we make it a life event in our brains. But I'm not yet defining life events.

Another function of the brain is to forget useless information. Imagine getting stuck with all the information you gathered all your life. You would have a headache all the time with that information overload. Its like remembering how much you tipped the waiter, how much water you drank on the 5th of September last year, how many bags of potato chips you opened last month, and well, you get what I mean. The brain has to let go of some information to receive more information. It's a wonder how it works so efficiently to accommodate the human needs.

Okay, what are life events, since memories (not memorized stuff or run-by information, memories) can't be forgotten, it can't be changed, because it is of the past. But our attitude towards those memories can be changed. Let's say you wore white pants and got splashed in the side walk on the way to school, and when you got there, everyone was staring and laughing at you (petty example, pardon me for that), you remember it as embarrassing and could not forget it because it has become a bad memory of wearing white pants, but then you remember it was then when you met your true friends who stood up for you and offered a change of clothes or something. Now you've changed that bad memory to a life event worth keeping.

I had this friend who went to a convention. While he was there looking into products during the break, a lot of people were calling him doctor and asking him for his opinion on the topic. One guy event asked for his autograph. He was wondering why he was getting a lot of attention. One of the personnel asked if he was going to give a new presentation the next day. He then asked the personnel, "Why are you asking me for my presentation?" he was answered with a "Aren't you Dr. ________?" He looked on his name tag and he apparently was a doctor that whole time, and found out why he got all the attention. He never forgot a topic in that convention, because for him, it became a life event.

A biblical example of this is Joseph. Joseph was sold by his older brothers as a slave and was then brought to Egypt. He became a slave and his master, Potiphar had a wife who had her eye on Joseph. She tried to seduce Joseph, and Potiphar thinking his slave was cheating with his wife, sent Joseph to prison. He could have hated his brothers for selling him as a slave and his master for turning a blind eye on him. But as he prospered, he soon became a leader in Egypt, and when his brothers came to Egypt to buy food, he chose to remember the past as a blessing. Thus, his negative past, became a memory worth remembering, a life event.

So what are life events, they experiences, both positive and negative, that we choose to look in a positive attitude. I will start experiencing and stop sulking about my past.