11:05am Tuesday
Good day! I’m following up on some client phone calls this morning while my kids hang out with my mother-in-law.
Sunday evening, she and I talked late into the night about the coronavirus, a possible return of students to schools in the fall, and —because everything is political these days— the politics of it all.
One thing she brought up was Trump’s recent tweet that we’re getting closer to a vaccine.
“It’s magical thinking,” she said, to raise people’s expectations when there’s no evidence to support it. “Trump does this all the time. He makes things up that just aren’t true.”
Truth, however, isn’t as apparent and unchanging as we’d like to believe.
400 years ago, it was a known truth that the sun revolves around the Earth.
200 years ago it was a known truth that bad smells caused illnesses.
10 years ago it was a known truth that low-fat food was healthy.
And sadly, the truth of science is itself untrustworthy. The idea of “Evidence Based Medicine” sounds great… until you learn that the evidence is only published when enriches the makers of that medicine. Meanwhile, in many different scientific fields, scores of studies and experiments aren’t reproducible.
Which means that, while the promise of science is to find truth and knowledge, it’s a slow process that’s prone to human failures, emotions, greed, and agendas.
Beyond the truth that science seeks, there are additional truths in the world.
Maybe you’ve heard the idea, “Perception is Reality.” How you see the world creates the reality you live in.
Do you see yourself as successful, with a few setbacks? Or do you see yourself as a victim with a handful of small wins?
If someone angers you, that’s your perception of a situation. He might not even know it happened, yet you let it ruin your day.
And when you find $5 on the ground, you suddenly think everything is roses.
Your perception defines the reality you experience. And you can alter that reality when you tell yourself positive —or negative— stories that reinforce that world view.
See, it’s your magical thinking that shows you a way forward, gives you a bigger goal, inspires others to act, and allows creativity to flourish.
Where would humans be without this magical thinking?
Magical thinking allows the underdog to fight with irrational confidence.
Magical thinking lead the Wright brothers to try and fail and try again until they unlocked the secrets to human flight.
Magical thinking allowed civil rights movement to envision a better future and get there without resorting to violence.
Magical thinking, it turns out, are the very stories that you tell yourself every day about how the world works and how you fit in it.
Jeffrey
P.S. Truth is larger than this, even. The truth of science is supported with evidence and slowly gets updated with time. Truth of perception is malleable. And higher still are spiritual truths, which cannot be measured and aren’t subject to the whims and winds of the day.