‘We can infer from the speed with which people respond to questions about their life, and from the effects of current mood on their responses, that they do not engage in a careful examination when they evaluate their life.  They must be using heuristics, which are examples of substitution and WYSIATI.’*

There we were, on a beach below St. Andrew’s castle: four middle-aged people picking out “sea diamonds” from among the stones, and dodging the waves of an incoming tide.

Sea diamonds are just my name for the pieces of broken glass ground smooth by the action of the waves.  A little later, in the window of a jewellers in the town, we spotted these pieces of glass made up into earrings, necklaces and bracelets.

Three things caught my attention this morning:

Lewis Hyde tells of how a gift’s value would increase amongst Native American tribes as it was broken.**
Pema Chödrön tells a story of how, when it comes to failure, we tend notice what is happening to us rather than our feelings about what is happening – which means we are more acted upon than acting upon.^
Rohit Bhargava encourages us to be thoughtful about a thought or idea before passing it on.^^

We are the sea diamonds in this tale, more than broken glass.  Something beautiful is happening in the gifts are lives are becoming to others through the difficult experiences of life.

Whilst we don’t invite these, we choose our response as we go through them, before we share our gift.

(*From Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow.  Substitution is the swapping of a difficult question for an easy one, and WYSIATI is to be closed to a new way of seeing: What You See Is All There Is.)
(**Lewis Hyde’s The Gift.)
(^Pema Chödrön’s Fail Fail Again Fail Better.)
(^^Rohit Bhargava’s Non-Obvious.)