In the Screwtape Letters, this observation really reasonated with me: "All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be." It reminded me of a passage from the Book of Mormon (Alma 32:27) that my wife is fond of:
But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.
In business school, we did a case about a person who, early in career, observed effective behaviors in certain executives and then tried to apply them in his own job. When presented with a challenge, he would ask himself how would so-and-so act in this situation or how would so-and-so think about this problem. At first, he was just pretending to be like these executives but over time he internalized their behaviors and made them his own. Hopefully I can do the same. If I pretend to be the person I want to become, perhaps I'll actually become that person in time.
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3 comments:
This made me think of children. They learn such a vast amount through playing and pretending. Our kids pretend to do and be many things. They are learning how to do those things in standard ways and in creative ways. They are learning to be many things in both standard and creative ways.
You know how I feel about this. You can pretend until it becomes real. I don't mean be fake or try to be something you aren't. I mean try on a new hat (characteristic) and figure how to make it fit on your head and look attractive.
The very first meeting I had at my first school job was with the principal, both special educators, a veteran classroom teacher, a very "squeaky-wheel" parent, and her child's private psychologist. I didn't know the child one iota, but had worked with her sister over the summer. I was so nervous I had to work to not show my heaving breaths. The parent had requested that I be there because she "respected my opinion". Please! I didn't know what I was doing, let alone how a school operated or what politics were involved. For heaven's sake, how could I have an opinion about a child I'd never met, let alone worked with? My opinion was requested toward the end of the meeting so I'd had a chance to hear how all of the other professionals had approached the needs of this child as well as how they regarded each other. I tried to listen to my gut instincts, but, most of all, I just showed no hesitancy in stating my thoughts and opinions. After the meeting, the mother and psychologist thanked me for being there and for my support. As I walked away from the meeting, the principal, special educators, and classroom teacher praised me on my contributions to the meeting and were ecstatic with the positive outcome.
I tell you this because I could not have been more clueless in that meeting. I truly believe that people took me seriously only because I showed complete confidence in my statements; but, I was absolutely lacking in confidence and used instinct and my pretending skills to get through it. And, of course, it was a perpetuating thing. I seemed confident, so people treated me like I was competent and knew what I was doing, which in turn made me more confident. And so on and so forth. :)
love you. ap
p.s. I am trying to apply the whole pretend thing to faith. We'll see if it works.
love you. ap
Some additional thoughts from "Rules for Renegades":
Remember: an illusion is something you use to change the reality around you. A delusion is something that prevents you from seeing the reality around you.
"fake it till you make it"
"Act it until you ARE it"
"Imagination is everything - it is the preview of life's coming attractions"
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