That's why I think the book should be required reading for adults because in the process of becoming adults and getting us ready to succeed, we are often cautioned out of living the life that might be ours to live. How is it that we can learn and gain wisdom without being stopped on the miraculous journey that is ours to live? Milo "pays the tolls" and learns to embrace the challenge the proverbial "tollbooths" along the way stop him.
Almost every page of The Phantom Tollbooth carries a lesson that I needed to learn...again and again. While I appreciate that I may be projecting, I think many of my adult friends could also benefit from the lessons. I won't burden you with 250 lessons, but yesterday, today, and tomorrow I will share ones that I know in my heart I need to learn. Yesterday was on accomplishing the impossible. Today, I will write about noticing what often escapes the eye. Tomorrow will be about doing unimportant things. By that point, if I haven't tantalized you into reading this book, I will dangle the carrot of Jules Feiffer's wonderful illustration as added incentive.
On Milo's quest, he encounters a number of characters, some of them help him on his journey, and others--the demons--impede his progress. As he is parting from a visit with Alec, a most unusual boy of Milo's own age, his new friend gives him a present for his journey. It is a very special telescope. As Alec presents Milo with the glass, he says,
"Carry this with you on your journey...for there is much worth noticing that often escapes the eye. Through it you can see everything from the tender moss in a sidewalk crack to the glow of the farthest star--and, most important of all, you can see things as they really are, not just as they seem to be. It's my gift to you."
"...see things as they are..." I've been accused of being a wide-eyed optimist and believing in magic, even miracles. (See yesterday's post.) I proudly cop to it all. A former partner even cut out an old Peanuts cartoon strip, which suggested that my head was in the clouds, and I needed someone to keep my feet on the ground. While I am flattered that he recognized that my head was in the clouds, I am not sure that our feet are supposed to be on the ground--I know mine aren't. Where's the fun in that?
Yet, having achieved a graduate degree in business, I have been well-schooled in looking for the potential flaw or the impediment to a plan and then planning for the problem. By necessity, focusing on flaws or impediments causes us to miss "what often escapes the eye"--the miracles. as it were.
Yet, having achieved a graduate degree in business, I have been well-schooled in looking for the potential flaw or the impediment to a plan and then planning for the problem. By necessity, focusing on flaws or impediments causes us to miss "what often escapes the eye"--the miracles. as it were.
Even as I finished reading this book, what I recall is all the impediments and demons Milo overcame. What? There were a lot of helpers on the journey, not least of which is the fact that "time flies," and could carry Milo and his companions over the demons, making it possible to accomplish the impossible. Now how often do we think of "time flying" as a facilitator of miracles?
In a world focused on identifying and mitigating risks, it seems to me that we each need to have one of these special telescopes to help us "notice what often escapes the eye." I can sit and count dozens of personal miracles in my life--times when things just worked out almost as if "by magic," but my graduate school training did not teach me to mitigate risks by planning on miracles. However, miracles have saved my skin at least as much as my planning for risk mitigation.
The truly remarkable thing is that when I focus on the risks, I miss the miracles, the gratitude, and the joy that come from feeling supported in life. I miss the feeling of being in the middle of a miracle, and it is an awesome feeling at that--a giddiness unlike any other. I am not sure when the tide in my life happened. I know I focused on the miracles long after graduate school, having my books published in multiple languages, and even having doors to global consulting magically open for me.
Even after the combination of the dot.com bust and 9/11 sucked the life out of my publishing, coaching, and consulting life, I retained my joy in miracles. I remember feeling intense gratitude as I sat to write The Game Called Life, at that time. I'd been hungry for the time to write, and during what I thought was a pause in my business, I had time to write my first piece of spiritual fiction. I was giddy. I was giddy a week later with the first draft done to receive a significant financial gift from former clients. I said the Universe was paying me for writing. I was giddy when I walked in a dance not long after that and learned of a university teaching job that I was hired for three days later.
I certainly saw the miracle in an unsolicited job offer just when the lack of integrity of a former employer was making my work environment intolerable. And the offer was for more international work: how much more of an miracle could I have asked for? I even saw the miracle in the ease of my hiring for my current position at an Agency which had been the focus of study and writing for 20 years. Could I neglect the delight I felt when a significant cash gift arrived from my father's estate 28 years after his death...on the very day I had closed on the purchase of a real "fixer-upper" home?
Somehow, I've recognized these small miracles when they happened, but along the way, the focus on the flaws has robbed me of my optimism and with it my ability to see that, by and large, things are working pretty well in my world. Yeah!
Tollbooths slow our journey, usually for a fraction of a minute. (Maybe less with EZPass.) They are not intended to stop us. All of the snags which Milo encountered slowed him a bit, but they didn't stop him. He remained focused on his intention--to succeed in his quest. I think I've allowed the tollbooths in my life to slow me to a halt, rather than being a minor impediment. My intention is and has always been to help the world to connect through love. It is time for me to move through this tollbooth that I've allowed to become a semi-permanent stop.
I wish for myself and everyone out there who has been tainted by graduate school, the business world, project management tenets, the media, and every other beast our modern world has created to distract us from seeing the truly miraculous world in which we live one of these special telescopes. It is time to make some miracles. Wishing you a day of noticing what often escapes the eye...
In a world focused on identifying and mitigating risks, it seems to me that we each need to have one of these special telescopes to help us "notice what often escapes the eye." I can sit and count dozens of personal miracles in my life--times when things just worked out almost as if "by magic," but my graduate school training did not teach me to mitigate risks by planning on miracles. However, miracles have saved my skin at least as much as my planning for risk mitigation.
The truly remarkable thing is that when I focus on the risks, I miss the miracles, the gratitude, and the joy that come from feeling supported in life. I miss the feeling of being in the middle of a miracle, and it is an awesome feeling at that--a giddiness unlike any other. I am not sure when the tide in my life happened. I know I focused on the miracles long after graduate school, having my books published in multiple languages, and even having doors to global consulting magically open for me.
Even after the combination of the dot.com bust and 9/11 sucked the life out of my publishing, coaching, and consulting life, I retained my joy in miracles. I remember feeling intense gratitude as I sat to write The Game Called Life, at that time. I'd been hungry for the time to write, and during what I thought was a pause in my business, I had time to write my first piece of spiritual fiction. I was giddy. I was giddy a week later with the first draft done to receive a significant financial gift from former clients. I said the Universe was paying me for writing. I was giddy when I walked in a dance not long after that and learned of a university teaching job that I was hired for three days later.
I certainly saw the miracle in an unsolicited job offer just when the lack of integrity of a former employer was making my work environment intolerable. And the offer was for more international work: how much more of an miracle could I have asked for? I even saw the miracle in the ease of my hiring for my current position at an Agency which had been the focus of study and writing for 20 years. Could I neglect the delight I felt when a significant cash gift arrived from my father's estate 28 years after his death...on the very day I had closed on the purchase of a real "fixer-upper" home?
Somehow, I've recognized these small miracles when they happened, but along the way, the focus on the flaws has robbed me of my optimism and with it my ability to see that, by and large, things are working pretty well in my world. Yeah!
Tollbooths slow our journey, usually for a fraction of a minute. (Maybe less with EZPass.) They are not intended to stop us. All of the snags which Milo encountered slowed him a bit, but they didn't stop him. He remained focused on his intention--to succeed in his quest. I think I've allowed the tollbooths in my life to slow me to a halt, rather than being a minor impediment. My intention is and has always been to help the world to connect through love. It is time for me to move through this tollbooth that I've allowed to become a semi-permanent stop.
I wish for myself and everyone out there who has been tainted by graduate school, the business world, project management tenets, the media, and every other beast our modern world has created to distract us from seeing the truly miraculous world in which we live one of these special telescopes. It is time to make some miracles. Wishing you a day of noticing what often escapes the eye...
*The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster with illustrations by Jules Feiffer, Random House Children's Books, 1961.
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