Fortune Cookie Friday: Our Beliefs May Be Holding Us Back

I am sure you have seen movies where a scientist is desperately working on some pivotal project, only to sit back in disgust over their lack of progress. Moments later, they are filling their coffee mug and a drop splashes on the counter, somehow jogging their intellectual acuity to solve the conundrum.

Does the displacement of fluids help us think? Does the drop on the pristine counter, jarring our OCD into action, make us more intelligent? Well, of course not, but pulling away from our beliefs can help us see through the fog.

Now, when I say beliefs, I do not necessarily mean religious, but if you want to take it down that road, then so be it. I am using the word beliefs to mean habits, practices, methods, or procedures. The previously mentioned scientist was trying to solve the problem a certain way, repeatedly with no success. The prescribed method they were using probably works most of the time, but what they should have done is stepped back and looked at the problem from a different angle.

I wrote about looking at things from a different angle and seeing their beauty in last week’s FCF, and this week’s fortune ties in with it nicely. We occasionally need to break from our everyday practices and try something different. We need to muddle up the mundane works of our lives by being spontaneous, only then will the extraordinary break through.

Now, not all of us can be that Real Genius that solves the laser problem by looking at some dry ice that fell on the floor (my official ‘80s movie reference), but we can take a moment each day to do something different that will give us a new look on life.