There's no faking it on either side. (no pressure right?) The way each person accounts their breakthroughs always amaze me.In getting ready to start my new
campus run, I went through thousands of such accountings and found some I'd forgotten about; one, in particular, I asked permission to share with you.
In describing his own personal breakthrough this man wrote me the following:
The only way I can describe the process was that it was like I'd bought this big screen TV that I'd wanted for a long time. I got it home took it out of the box and set it up on the table. But I couldn't get it to work.
I kept plugging and replugging. I read the manual six times. I called the Sony people and learned how to take it back to the original manufacturer settings which I often did. I'd play with the clicker. I'd get so frustrated that I'd just pull all the connectors out and let the TV sit there and go back to watching the old one in the other room with only three channels.
When I'd get up the nerve, the whole process would start all over again. Each time I'd think I was getting closer because I began to learn all the preference settings. FInally, I got out a pad and started writing down all the wrong steps so I wouldn't continue to make the same mistakes.
I began to rely more on my own pad's information and stopped referencing any of the manuals. I when through all the pages on my pad tracing my steps until I was finally able to confirm I'd done every conceivable thing. Yet, I still couldn't get a signal. You said,
"Congratulations you know the most important thing now! You knew it has nothing to do with the TV, and its inner workings are fine. The signal is there you just can't activate it. Find a new path."
I then realized it was something in my own house. Something in my world. I wasn't the extension cord, and I'd already checked the circuit breaker. It wasn't the cable. It was tightly connected to its port.
You said, "But wait, what's the port connected to?"
You got me up on the preverbal roof to confirm that the line was firmly attached to the dish.
You said, is it?
I said yes, there's the cable and it goes through the roof right here.
You pointed to my head then to my heart and said, "So somewhere between where the cable on the roof disappears and the port in the room, is where the disconnect is."
But I said that means clearing out the whole attic to expose the floorboards to trace the line. It means opening up all the walls. It's total reconstruction.
You asked, "is it worth it?"
No, I said, it's too much disruption, expense and who knows what all. It could be a total domino effect. You then asked me if it was okay that everyone in the room now shared hundreds of channels and you only got three. I said yes I'd learn to live without the TV. It wasn't worth the risk. With every question you asked I kept defending myself by explaining how hard the construction would be.
You kept saying find another path and I kept saying there's only one. You then asked, "if you could leave the house and at no expense to you when you returned all the work was finished, would you want the TV connected?"
I said, well sure!
You said, "so you don't mind the change or the disruption if you don't have to live through it? " I said right!
You said, "okay we'll rip up your house, get rid of everything in the attic and when you come home, you'll have TV but, of course, everything will be different."
Well no, I said, I don't want everything changed, I like my house just the way it is.
You said, "then find a different path. You know the TV is fine and you know the dish is fine, find a different path."
How, I asked? "This time, start up on the roof," you replied.
I remember being up there and peering over the edge of the eaves when it dawned on me. I didn't have to follow the same path just because the guy who installed the line put it there. It didn't have to be where it had always been. Within moments, I disconnected the old line, reconnected a new cable to the dish and threw it over the roof. I ran down threw open the window, grabbed the cable and screwed it into the back of the TV and there it was, a whole new world of images burst forth.
Many people have described their re-connection in very different ways. One woman said it was like a door that she'd walked past a million times. She'd jiggle the handle, but it never opened until one day she grabbed her tool box and took off the hinges.
The point is, creativity is always accessible and reliable. The source signal never changes. It's only the signal path that becomes blocked. Without a clear signal, our inner GPS is useless. We stagger around in a world where change seems scary. Because without creativity, new ideas and inspiration can't happen. So we cling only to what we know.; the pre-conceived ideas that were often made for us but no longer work. We have to learn to think beyond the choices in our lives that we can't change and simply chart a new course to our inherent creativity. Once reconnected, only it has the power to transform even the most complicated and convoluted aspects of lives.
