I’m getting to know this blog. There’s so much I don’t know.
It’s not like the other one, which was on Typepad. Here, you only see my two most recent posts. I hope you forgive a few glitches I’m trying to work out.
In the meantime, this business just gobbles up time.
So, I’m going to pack it in for now and have a look at the world and catch up on what I’ve missed today.
Here’s to sweet dreams.
And let me know what you like here and what you don’t like. I’ll see if I can make some adjustments that will make you feel more comfortable during our transition.
In other words, talk to me. Tell me your thoughts. Comments and criticisms. It’s so important to keep the dialogue going.
Hugs,
sln
Sending you my best wishes for every success, Sandy!!! Great move!
Nellie, you’ve been on my mind all day. I know you have a busy time coming up and I appreciate you’re good wishes, despite all the pressures in your life right now. Thank you.
BTW, that book I ordered for Paul has not yet arrived, but I’m going to go looking for it.
Sending you and him all my love and gratitude.
You’re such a loyal buddy!
xox
s
Hi, Sandy–I like your new blog, and I appreciated the quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Your interpretation of “willing suspension of disbelief” works for me. I also see the phrase as applying to a kind of “openness” to new ideas, even when they seem implausible or strange–in the service of opening up the self to new possibilities. –Best regards, Ron Pies MD
Hi, Ron…
Many thanks for your encouraging comment. You’ve soothed my rather guilty soul. I went to bed last night worried that every English Literature major and professor would be coming after me with daggers.
Your intriguing addition to my interpretation of Coleridge’s concept reminds me of a story I read not long ago in the British newspaper, The Telegraph, headlined “Be lucky – it’s an easy skill to learn,” written by psychologist Richard Wiseman.
In it, he describes research he conducted with 400 people who considered themselves to be lucky. He followed them for 10 years, with three sets of tests followed by interviews. He concluded there are three “easy techniques that can help to maximize good fortune,” and all three, quite pragmatically, point to a basic openness to new ideas or new ways of thinking. Again, I’m stretching, but here are those ideas ~ and who doesn’t want to learn to be lucky:
• “Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making choices, whereas lucky people tend to respect hunches. Lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them because gut feeling act as an alarm bell – a reason to consider a decision carefully,” Wiseman writes.
• “Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that colour. (I’m going to try that and not choose black.) This kind of behaviour boost the likelihood of chance opportunities by introducing variety,” he continued.
• “Lucky people tend to see the positive side of their ill fortune. They imagine how things could have been worse. In one interview, a lucky volunteer arrived with his leg in a plaster cast and described how he had fallen down a flight of stairs. I asked him whether he still felt lucky,” Wiseman reports. “And he cheerfully explained the he felt luckier than before. As he pointed out, he could have broken his neck.”
Richard Wiseman is a psychologist at the University of Herfordshire and his book, The Luck Factor, is published by Century and available through Amazon.com.
Wow, quite the segue from William Taylor Coleridge, but I thought this was fun.
Thanks again, Ron, for adding such richness to our conversation and sparking my detour from “willing suspension of disbelief” and your interpretation on that concept, an “openness to new ideas, even when they seem implausible,” to learning to be lucky. There is a connection and it seems Wiseman and you and perhaps even Coleridge and Keats are all on a similar track.
Cheers,
sln