Do you ever find yourself wrapped up in your own personal melodrama? Nothing has actually happened, but you have written the script for all the key players, and you’ve played and replayed what you "know" will happen.
Danny Thomas understood this well. He has a famous joke, that has become known as the Jack Story, that we want to share with you. Here is our telling of it:
A traveling salesman gets a flat tire one night on an empty country road. Frustratingly, he discovers that the rental car has no jack. In the far distance he sees a farmhouse with a light on. Hoping they have a jack he can borrow, he starts walking. As he walks, he thinks:
"Boy it’s awfully late, they’ll be annoyed to be awakened so late."
"Well, they must be up, their light is on."
"They are going to be so irritated to dig out their jack at this hour."
"What if they think I’m a trespasser and call the cops on me!"
"But I’m stranded, what am I going to do? I’ve got to ask if they can help?!"
"If he thinks I’m a robber, he’s being paranoid."
He goes on and on this way, continuing to imagine how angry and annoyed the farmer will be upon being disturbed.
He finally arrives at the door and the farmer calls out from his window. "Hello? Is everything alright?" And he replies, "You know what... you can take your jack and shove it right up your *!$"
The joke is famous because we can all relate to it. It demonstrates the power of our minds. We build up stories and act from them, forgetting that we’ve made them up. Can you identify any Jack Stories that you’ve been telling?
We hope today’s newsletter is a helpful reminder to be present with what’s in reality, not the negative stories we make up.
To seeing things as they are!
Workability
December 29, 2020
workabilityinc