In my day job, I work with universes of people who have been run up against statistical models. That’s just a fancy way of saying that we take big groups of people and try to figure out who among them are more likely to buy our products. Don’t worry – I’m not going to talk about statistics. Statistics makes my head hurt.
What I do want to say is this – when I am working with an entire universe of people, I can’t add to the group. There aren’t any more to add because I’m already working with one hundred percent.
I can restrict the universe of people. I can split them up into different, smaller groups. I can delete people who don’t have qualities I’m looking for, or highlight people who do. I can slice them and dice them or maneuver them around. I can make them dance and sing show tunes.
But unless I change the group and start over, I can’t add more people.
One hundred percent of the people who make up the group have already been accounted for.
It occurred to me the other day, that this might be true in our lives as well.
What if we already have one hundred percent of what we need? What if we can’t add to ourselves, because we are already complete? What if all we can do is restrict ourselves, or split ourselves into different sections, or delete or highlight ourselves?
What if I stop assuming I am deficient? What if I stop thinking I need to add things to myself to be more than what I am? Because if I already have everything I need, then there’s nothing I can add. To add, I would have to start over.
So what if, instead of concentrating on finding things to add to myself to become more acceptable, I just try not to restrict the qualities that are already there? What if I start to believe I have what I need and focus on trying to find it?
If I think about myself that way, would it change how I live my life? Would it change how I view myself?
Of course it would.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.William Wordsworth
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