I am on day 36 of 84 in my “sprint.” My desire to rapidly improve myself in preparation for a second marathon. As I push myself, thoughts that come to my mind are very unique. This morning, I was reflecting on the dangers of incorrect thinking about the effects of past events on my current moment. This is hard to explain. Let me try using a word.
The word is Anachronistic. The easy way to explain this would be a mistake that might be made in a movie. Lets say you are watching an old western, and when the gun slinger is walking down the dusty road, you see a tumble weed roll past and pass by a Porsche 911 Carrera GTS. That would be anachronistic. A mistake in thinking or practice that misconstrues the time period. This is a simple example. A more real example would be to say that the Puritans that settled Plymouth were seeking to create a country of religious liberty and freedom. That is very anachronistic thinking. The Puritans were trying to do the exactly opposite. They wanted to keep their ideology pure and free from corruption by escaping other influences. They were against religious tolerance and would have been absolutely against the Bill of Rights freedom of religion concept. They wanted the separation of church and state because they wanted to rule themselves WITHOUT government involvement at all. An institution of man could not possibly create a government to rule their perfect religious system. To attribute religious tolerance to the early settlers of the Americas is anachronistic.
So that is the concept. So why do I bring it up? Well, I believe that we are all victims to anachronistic thinking. We mess up the timeline and condense time to fit a false narrative. It is probably where stereotypes are born from. We all have a person in our families that gets labeled. We categorize them as such because of an incident. We then attribute all timeline of events through the lens of this label. Completely inaccurate most of the time, causes a lot of frustration, especially when you are that family member! However, I bring this up on a personal level.
Just because I failed one time, or just because I heard something negative, does not mean that all events of my future are going to be the same way, or have the same result. This is the same as anachronistic thinking. Your are constantly doing it. Your preconceptions are almost always wrong, and in reality most likely exactly the opposite of the truth. You are too old, too fat, too injured, too dumb, too poor, too this or too that to make positive change in your life? Sorry you are wrong. Take a few minutes and seriously analyze why you are thinking that way. What is the root cause of that thought? I get too stressed out to take that kind of risk. It is not for me you say. Why? Are you just going to sit there and judge all future events and opportunities through that lens? The solution to all your problems could stand right in front of you and you would miss it because you are stuck in this concept you somehow learned which happens to be completely false.
I am too old. That is my favorite. You are 60 years old and you say you are too old, then 20 years go by, you are still saying you are too old except now you are saying, if only I was 20 years younger I could start something like that! You are NEVER too old. You might be too old to compete on an Olympic bobsledding team, but you are not too old to bobsled. If you can sit in a wheel chair, you can sit in a bobsled. Your knees hurt too bad to run, I am just too old. Whatever! How long are you going to keep telling yourself this anachronistic lie? Yes, your knees hurt once, that does not mean they will always hurt. Ok, you cannot run, but you can walk. If you cannot walk, then you can cycle. You have the ability to overcome, especially in this society. Every accommodation is before you. I just met a man that has no legs, partial use of his right arm, and he is competing in major cycling events raising money for charity. Seriously. Stop bleeping making excuses and justifying your excuses by anachronistically taking some distance thing from the past and making it become your stumbling block today.
Guy Reams
