Having Courage Is One Of The Six Impossible Things
“Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second”
– Lewis Carroll
Life seems like that sometimes. I remember years ago that we were driving north on I-5 in Oregon and we had just crested the top of a hill around Roseberg. You could see quite a way in front of you as the road sloped down into a valley. Ahead of us was a semi-tractor trailer and he ran over something that looked like shiny metal in the road. Immediately his tires blew and he started swerving and then the whole rig tipped onto its side.
For a moment it was like slow motion. I could see so many small details as the whole scene played out like a movie. Then whoosh, time sped back up and my husband was pulling off the road and running back to make sure the driver was ok. The driver was just shocked by what had happened. But for me, it was the weirdest experience of time I have ever had. It was like the rabbit said, forever came in just one second.
“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
In order to embrace change, you need a great deal of courage. Change in your life today is speeding up, faster and faster. This speed of change is impacting every facet of your life. It changes the education system, the business world, and your personal life.
I saw a cute video the other day where the family was in a hotel room and the dad handed the telephone receiver to his young daughter to hang it up. She didn’t know what to do. All she had experience with was a cell phone. She didn’t understand the receiver had to go onto the cradle of the phone.
Technology changes your world moment by moment. Political upheaval can change all of the rules you live by in a moment. Your belief systems can swing from one absolute truth, to a new absolute truth. It takes a lot of courage to stay in that place of curiosity . To not become mired into taking rigid stands against someone whose belief is different from yours.
It takes a lot of courage to change beliefs that you have had for a long time. It could be that you have to finally acknowledge that you have outgrown them. Or it could be that science, technology, and even a simple virus has totally changed the world as you know it.
It takes a lot of courage to have a love affair with the unknown. It means that you are constantly learning something new. Each new thing demands that we let go of an old belief. You may think like Alice “this is impossible” but as the Mad Hatter replied, “Only if you think it is.” My favorite line is “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
“May I have the courage today to live the life that I would love. To postpone my dream no longer. But do at last what I came here for and waste my heart on fear no more” – John O’Donohue
Courage is being in love with the anticipation of what comes next, even when we have no idea what that might be.
Transformation was a big topic in the story. One pill made her smaller, Cake made her larger. The Cheshire Cat became invisible. Animals can talk. You can kill the Jabberwocky.
Nothing remained the same for long in Wonderland. It feels like right now that we are all walking through Wonderland. The world is shifting day by day, and no one knows what to expect to have happened at the end of the day. Are you approaching the madness with curiosity? With courage?
I think that the most interesting thing about curiosity is that it hides something most of us are afraid of admitting. It cloaks your ignorance about something or someone. Most of us wouldn’t want to admit we don’t know something. But we aren’t afraid of being curious.
Being curious is a great gift. At the moment that you use this gift –
- You open your mind.
- You get excited.
- You get adventurous.
- You step willingly into the unknown.
- All of your fears become muted.
