sixball

Moving house is always a good excuse for a decluttering and one thing I’ve been dragging around with me the last decade is my ergonomic kneeling stool.  Loved but never used, up on eBay it went and fetched the princely sum of £15 plus P&P.  The P&P requires corrugated cardboard, folded (and possibly joined) to certain dimensions.

Feels like I’m working too hard already as I rummage in Aldi, ask in Delta Pi and surf Access Self-Storage.  It doesn’t fit in an off-the-shelf box and I’m starting to develop the hungry look of a (90% recycled) junkie.

If there were a small god of packaging, he smiled on me as I left work.   An abundance of the brown pulped planes appeared – far more than I could transport on my bike – and I was able to select an ideal piece.

So what’s the kicker here?

I’d not noticed the cardboard before although I’ve no reason to think it just appeared.  However, having been primed to see cardboard, it jumped right out at me.  It got me thinking.

Far more passes in front of my eyes than I can possibly be aware of.  My conscious attention is just a surfer on an ocean of mental activity.  Yet what I notice is very much set by what I’m tuned to – even if I’m not aware of what that is.

If I’m expecting sleights, I see them.  When I feel lucky, I am.  Accidents come in threes and successful roll has its own momentum.

You can call it serendipity, cosmic alignment or whatever.  The point is that consciously maintaining a positive, opportunistic outlook does not just cast a rosy tint on your view of the world but actually puts the spotlight on things within it.

I imagine many belief systems get a lot of mileage out of this simple principle.  I expect it has a name if only I could google for concepts.