Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Achieving the impossible
Edison
"If we did all the things we are capable of doing we would truly astound ourselves." Not my words, but those of inventor Thomas Edison, 1847-1931 who gave us the light bulb. It also comes to mind that he made a great many attempts to achieve success in his endeavouir. Thanks to Asker the story goes...."After struggling to develop a viable electric light-bulb for months and months, Thomas Edison was interviewed by a young reporter who boldly asked Mr. Edison if he felt like a failure and if he thought he should just give up by now. Perplexed, Edison replied, "Young man, why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know definitively over 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp." And shortly after that, and over 10,000 attempts, Edison invented the light bulb."
I keep on trying to play the violin. I haven't made 10,000 attempts .....or maybe I have. I'm still waiting to be astounded. However, I have learnt that it's far more important to work on the process rather than just aiming for the end result. This is particularly important when we're learning a skill such as playing the violin or piano. This takes thousands of hours of practice and if we want to achieve even a modicum of success and play even simple pieces beautifully, it almost precludes the chance to do many other things as it's so time absorbing.
But if Edison is right, and I've no reason to doubt his words, then there are a great many things we could do and achieve a reasonable level of success. But the chance of doing them all in one lifetime is probably too far a stretch for most of us. Hang on....Did I just limit myself? But to suddenly realise that we had achieved all that we are capable of in this life, today would be a sad day. What else is there to do? Thankfully we are all capable of achieving more....far more. Even if we are severely handicapped we can achieve untold success. Take for instance Kevin Robinson who has written three books. He is a paraplegic and writes mysteries of a character in a wheelchair. He also climbs and descends stairs in a wheelchair. I wonder how many attempts he made before he succeeded...
It's reassuring to know that we can all capable of achieving new things; we could even achieve outstanding success in a field that we've never thought about. Wow. I'd like to think of some new things to do..... Something truly exciting, invigorating, stretching and rewarding. Finding out what that is could be a challenge itself. But there is someone we can ask. You got it. We ask ourselves.
A good way of discovering what we should do or how we should handle a situation is to think about the question at night before we drop off to sleep. Then in the morning before we properly wake up, drowsy as we are.....think of the question again and see what answer pops up before our intellectual and rational mind kicks in and kicks the idea out. When we're truly relaxed, that is a good time to discover what your subconscious knows.
My day is pretty packed as it is. Between teaching Alexander Technique full-time at my practice in central London, playing the violin, blog writing, doing photography as well as all the family and social pleasures...... there doesn't seem enough time to do more. Hang on. Who said "Can't!"? Did I say "I can't do more!"? No. I don't think I heard myself say that awful swear word "Can't."
I like the word 'Can'.
CAN
Say it to yourself.
"I CAN!"
Say it again.
Yep. That's the way it works.
:-)
