“Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl
I was listening to the On Being podcast with Krista Tippett and Jill Tarter. Jill Tarter is an astronomer and the co-founder of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute. She talked about her long career, the fascinating questions she’s pursued and the many eye-opening discoveries that have changed how we think of the possibilities. One of her examples was that scientists have discovered that life exists in so many places on earth we never thought possible – like bacteria in nuclear reactor fluid and whole colonies so far beneath the sea that light doesn’t shine. During the interview, this particular line that Jill said caught my attention, “We have to stop projecting what we think onto what we don’t know.”
Our thinking colors our ability to perceive. Our openness determines whether we will see magic. It makes me think of the time that I dropped my wallet in my neighborhood grocery store and had to go back for it. As my internal voice was grumping about my own carelessness, I both found the wallet and bumped in to a dear friend that I hadn’t seen for two years as she recovered from cancer. Best mistake ever. Or the time I was awakened early by the baby crying and blearily stumbled out of my room with the closed blinds to discover the most stunning sunrise. Or the magic of divorce which made me walk back everything I thought I knew about how life was going to go until I found out what life waited for me outside those expectations.
We have to be open to the possibility that while we are searching for how to be happy, we might just find out that we already are.
Surprised By Joy 