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“Perhaps the biggest gift that humankind has been given is the choice to decide what thoughts and attitudes we put in our minds.”


- From the book Change Your Mind, Change Your Life by Gerald Jampolsky and Diane V. Cirincione

Change is Power

Consider a mayonnaise jar filled with golf balls, pebbles, sand and coffee.

The allegory of this bizarre mixture teaches that we take care of larger issues ahead of smaller issues, while remembering to make time for friends.

This is an example of the continuum of mutability exhibiting multiple properties.

Let’s examine the text on two levels and then discover how it serves to illuminate, in a larger sense, the idea that change is power.

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On the Surface

Externally, the reader undergoes a mild change of perception as the realization hits: this is not about the physical items; it is a metaphor for how we can choose to live our daily lives.

Further, the reader may be moved to at least think about how her current priorities compare with the stated lesson.

Finally, the reader may feel so strongly about the lesson that she shares it with others.

We can observe several features of the continuum of mutability as the reader proceeds:

• the unilateral property is represented by the reader’s shift in perception. Only she is affected by changes, at first;
• the evolutionary property shows itself, for all action begins with thought, consideration, contrast and comparison;
• the revolutionary property becomes evident when the reader begins to spread the idea;
• the multilateral property manifests, not only because the reader has changed, but also because of the potential for the recipients to change. Additionally, the idea itself will be subject to modifications as it moves through more and more recipients.

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Beneath the Surface

Internally, the properties are more pronounced, but in an academic way (pardon the pun).
While the internal message may seem to be less important than the external activity that it inspires, the choice of setting, characters and props adds to the power of this allegory to effect change.

First of all, the narrator is neutral.

No emotion is injected into the account, leaving the reader free to impart whatever level of credibility is warranted.
The professor, in the original story at least, teaches philosophy.

This gives the reader two clues that the words are not going to be laid out at face value. Therein lies a subtle mutable property: the text will evolve from a semantic account to an allegorical account.

During the narrative, the reader learns that the professor fills an empty jar with golf balls.

This early on, the reader is still exploring the text semantically.

After the jar is filled with golf balls, the professor asks the students if the jar was full.

The narrator tells the reader that the students agreed that it was.

At this point, nothing unexpected has occurred in the text, so the reader mentally agrees, as well.

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Next, the professor poured pebbles into the jar and repeated his question.

The narrator informs the reader that the students again agreed.

By now, the astute reader may become suspicious. He can “see” the jar and is probably wondering what could possibly fit in there, next.

A bilateral manifestation of mutability is emerging, yet the reader is probably unaware that his perception of the text is shifting into the allegorical.

He is making the leap from the physical precepts to the philosophical. It is important to note that this shift would have been less powerful if the professor were a geologist. We don’t expect intangible concepts in a classroom of applied science, so our brains don’t get a chance to make this leap implicitly.

(Much like a comedian having to explain his joke, something is “lost”.)

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By the time the reader gets through the sand and the coffee, he may be chuckling at the clever lesson.
In the end, the metaphorical shift works because the creative use of imagery and ingrained notions of what constitutes a filled container resonates with the reader’s understanding of how most people tend to improperly prioritize things in their lives.

Resurfacing

Layering a simplistic story upon a seemingly complex philosophy is just one way that we enable our minds to manage the turbulence caused by information overload.
Besides allegories, we also make use of mnemonics, vivid associations and other “tricks”.
There is a point of diminishing returns, however, to neurological enhancement. Efficiency has it limits and, at any rate, cortical remapping of knowledge is not the goal being presented here.
Simplification is the key to clarifying the continuum of mutability in our lives.
Rather than bringing a gun to a knife fight, avoid the confrontation altogether.

Photo by D’Arcy Norman

Power is Change

Why do we struggle with priorities when we can eliminate them?

What do we gain by actively suppressing our essence (doing rather than being.)

Where do we draw the line between so-called success and so-called happiness?

When will we begin to look beyond the self-limiting thoughts of conventional wisdom, group-think and propaganda?

How do we know that change is even necessary?

The answers to all of these questions can be found only within ourselves.
If we believe that our days should be structured and our activities coordinated, we choose to juggle the golf balls in the sand traps of time.

If we equate efficiency with effectiveness [1] and busyness with business, we choose to focus on every subsystem of the master plan, while losing sight of that moving target.

If we measure success and happiness with two different yardsticks, we choose to make the two forever mutually exclusive.

If we can only repeat what we’ve read, only follow the herd and, in so doing, attempt to cloak our ignorance with the mascara of mindless vomit, we choose to abdicate the throne of our imaginations to the twin tyrants of Pride and Prejudice.

In Part Three, Plums in the Deep, we’ll explore fascinating resources that may help us rethink everything!