Posted Friday 16 May 2003

The Lesson of the Paper Bag

Today I found Adrienne laughing in the kitchen. "We're out of sacks for the trash," she said. I should add that we normally put the trash into large brown grocery-store bags.

"I got this one," she said, holding up a white plastic sack with a cute pink drawcord. "It's silly, though, because I saw one of these over at [somebody's] house, and looked all over to find one." She looked at me expectantly.

"So I see you found one?" I said.

"Well, duh, yeah," she said, "but the point is that they have rows and rows of brown grocery-store bags, and I was hunting all over for this kind, because I saw this kind."

We all do this. We overlook a solution to our problem, because we're holding some other picture in the mind. The mind is a targeting device. It gets a picture and then searches to find it. Picturing a white bag, we'll overlook hundreds of brown bags.

Is that really ... seeing?

People say, "Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it." I think, rather, we should be very careful about what we picture, as we'll probably spend lots of time seeking it.

Maybe we're seeking after what seems urgent. Because it looks urgent. Maybe we overlook what's actually important.

Now and then, for a fresh view of what's important, visit Jim Sloman's site at May You Be Happy.com. Always a new view. See for yourself.

That is the lesson of the paper bag.