body + soul magazine
Wonder & the Road Not Taken
"A recent study from Berkeley's Haas School of Business shows it's OK to wonder about the road not taken. The scientific term for what-iffing is 'counterfactual thinking,' and research suggests that those who think counterfactually aren't immobilized by regret: they may actually be more motivated.
In the Study, students wrote an essay on how they'd met a close friend. One group was told to stick to the facts; the other was asked to imagine that they hadn't met this friend and all the ways life would be different as a result. When people in the latter group considered that friend-less life, they viewed the friendship as more significant than people in the factual group did.
Counterfactual thinking may lead people to believe that everything happens for a reason, researchers surmise, and this sense of purpose might in turn lead to constructive thinking about the future. Which, to borrow from (Poet) Robert Frost*, might make all the difference."
- Taken from Body+Soul's May 2010 magazine, p. 44
The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
In the Zone - February 12, 2010
"And again I paddled out and caught a wave. For a third time I hopped to my feet, swiveled my hips, and guided the
board, so I was not walking on water, but gliding on it, dancing on it, as the wave crashed into the white foam behind me, propelling me into the glassy water ahead. This was infinity of the brightest kind, and I slipped into that ecstasy that comes with losing yourself completely, with touching the wet fire churning at the center of the world, with getting all the way inside life, no longer a witness but right at the crux, at the point of maximum propulsion. Finally the wave dropped me off at the beach, where I rammed my lovely Indian into the sand like an amateur and stumbled back onto land, my whole body grinning in elation and exhaustion." - Frances Lefkowitz - from How to Have Not (MacAdam/Cage) -Book excerpt published in body + soul Magazine.
I read Lefkowitz's words last night before heading to bed and was reminded of how wonderful it feels to be "in the zone." Where none of the cares of the world are filling my mind...just the elation of being connected to a moment, an action...
We all crave at one point in time or another the days of youth where we were nearly always in the zone -- whether we were climbing trees, playing cops & robbers or watching a favorite cartoon. Our focus was single and because of this we were ALIVE.
Today, I'd like to encourage you to find a fun activity to engage in that will enliven your spirit and take you into "the zone"...there you will find freedom and revitalization abound!
- Jen of Project BeBold!
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