Imagine going into a restaurant for dinner and having the waiter approach the table straight away asking what you'd like. You respond, "How about a menu to start?" And he says, "We don't have a menu." You say, "Are you kidding me?" He replies, "Nope." Puzzled, you ask, "Well how the hell am I supposed to know what to order, then?" He calmly responds, "What would you like?" You ask, "What do you got?" He smiles and says, "We got everything."
That would really throw most of us for a loop. Being told that there's no list of available items from which to order. We're pretty accustomed to being given limited options.
When we go to any restaurant, they give us the list of available options.
In school, when we take those RIDICULOUS standardized tests like the Strong Interest Inventory or the Meyers Briggs Type Indicator (which, by the way is a completely bastardized version of what once was a valuable tool to balance yourself holistically - based on the work of Carl Jung), we're given a short list of suggested career options based on the printout...
"You're test results indicate that you are an ENTJ and that means you can choose to become one of the following:"
I think I tested out to become a traffic cop  |
That's slightly exaggerated, but not entirely.
The point here is, that over time we have been conditioned to depart from our original state of infinite possibilities and abundant thinking, where we operate from the place that what we desire, by virtue of even being able to conceive the idea, is available to us in some form.
We become accustomed to being given a short list of options, and we then choose from that. (Upwards of 80% of American's report disliking their jobs - the activity that they spend most of their lives doing. Could be a correlation here.)
So imagine again being in that restaurant and being told that there's no menu because they have every possible entree. Every possible choice imaginable. The waiter asks, "You're gonna need a minute, aren't you?" 'Yeah, I think so. I'm not really used to considering this so thoroughly." And he leaves. Now you ask yourself, "Wow. I can have anything. What is it that I really really want?"
What a great question to reflect upon.
