Experiment #5

Experiment #5 in E-Squared is about the Force providing accurate and unlimited guidance. All I needed to do was ask for guidance on a yes-no question and expect an unambiguous answer within 48 hours.

Pretty simple, right? Not necessarily.

It took me a day or so to come up with a question. I finally asked in desperation and exasperation if I would ever be organized. It's a question and it has a yes-no answer. Or a maybe ... or  sometimes … answer. It was all I could think of. It would have to do.

About 24 hours later, no books or articles on organizing had fallen into my lap, nor did offers of such books show up in my in-box. Well … nothing besides the usual FlyLady and Martha Stewart emails, and if they were going to magically make me organized, I’d be … well … Martha Stewart by now.

I started looking for books on organizing. The Lord helps those who help themselves, right? So it’s not really cheating … is it? Helping the Force along?

I was looking for a free book. Or a great deal for a book. What I settled on was How to Get Organized without Resorting to Arson, by Liz Franklin. It wasn’t free, and it wasn’t particularly low cost. But it was available for Kindle, so I could purchase it and download it immediately. It turned out to be a wonderful book, as Liz has a great sense of humor and takes into account different personality styles. If an organizing expert were to walk into my workplace today (or any day – today is Saturday, after all) and tell us all how to do things, most of us would be completely lost. Liz shows us how to do things that match our own way of thinking.

I was able to start right away with making some changes. Not too much at once, and only at work (so far). I started on a smaller desk, and couldn’t do the U-shaped surround Liz recommends. I have subsequently changed desks, though, and the new desk is L-shaped, and then there’s a bookshelf unit that pretty much forms the U around me. Now I just need to get things set up the way they need to be to get the paperwork to flow. Getting things in on time is a big challenge for me (and almost everyone else), so I’m looking forward to continuing to organize my space.

And going back to Experiment #4 for a moment: it took a couple more weeks to get totally fed up with my iPhone 4S. I got an email from a major electronics store, offering the iPhone 4C for just $99 and get $50 back. I checked with my carrier and was eligible for an early upgrade. I went to the store to see what kind of deal I really could get. The $99 phone was too good to be true with 6 months to go on my current contract (I know, right?). But since I was eligible for an early upgrade, I could get the phone at full price. But wait – my iPhone 4S had a good trade-in value (they didn’t care about the battery drainage problem, just that there were no scratches and that the buttons worked fine), and the store was still going to give me the $50 back, so I ended up getting the phone for less than $100 (plus tax – ugh!). Of course, after buying a case and screen protector and extra charger, it cost me more than $100, but I would have bought those items anyway.

So … I guess that proves …. something. Perhaps that I can manifest a product out of air.

Experiment #4

Experiment #4 of E-Squared says to request something you want by make and model and expect it in 48 hours. I chose a new iPhone, but I couldn’t decide on a model. For some reason, Apple decided to release two models at once (how could they?). I haven't done the research into which will meet my needs better, and my current contract isn't up until next March. I'm eligible for an upgrade, but I will have to pay full price for a phone unless my carrier decides to offer me a deal I cannot refuse. So far, only Best Buy has sent me offers I have so far refused.

I'm supposed to keep the object of my desire in mind 24/7 until I get it. My full attention. This could cause problems with staying safe while driving or with holding coherent conversations with others. And my mind just wanders.

I was spending time with my mom while making this intention. She had heard that a building had collapse in a small town in New Hampshire and wanted to take a ride to see if she could find it. It was supposed to be right on the main drag, she said.

We took the scenic route. Mom drove, so I kept myself amused by taking photos of the emerging fall foliage and anything else that caught my eye (and deleted most of them, because they were blurry). A sign said, "moose crossing next 3 miles." I said out loud, "okay, moose, I'm ready for you." My mother said, "huh?" I explained that I had my camera out and was ready to photograph a moose crossing the road.

I didn't see any moose on that 3-mile stretch. Nor on the 2-mile stretch that followed. But we still weren’t through our excursion. I remained optimistic I would see a moose.

We reached an intersection in town. Mom was saying, "I'm not sure which way to go”, and I said, "it's right straight ahead." Literally. It was right in front of us. A building with its roof caved in. As we looked at the building from other angles, we could see the whole back end caved in. I hoped no one had been in the building when it collapsed.

Then we drove a bit more and came upon an antiques and junk shop. There were odd statues of animals in front of the shop. One was a moose. Really! I hadn’t specified a live moose in my intention to see a moose.

Later in the day, as I drove home through Vermont, I stopped at a basket store. What did I see hanging on the wall? A wicker moose head. Surreal. And lots of souvenirs with moose on them. So, okay, I saw moose. More than one. None real, but still, I guess they filled the intention.

The iPhone? I still don’t have a new iPhone. But about 4 days after my intention, I discovered that the latest and greatest operating system was ready to be installed onto my phone. After an hour and a half (and I’m told I was lucky it was such a short upgrade), I was a bit disconcerted to see that the look of everything had changed and that I had to relearn how to find and do just about everything. But in a sense, I suppose I have a new phone (though I still have one with a battery that lasts a couple hours some days).

Odd moose statue

Wicker moose head

Moose mug

Collapsed building. I hope no one was hurt!

Experiment #3

Experiment #3 in E-Squared involves wire coat hangers. You have to unbend the coat hangers, and I was reluctant to sacrifice 2 hangers for the sake of science. I was thinking about it all wrong, of course. Instead of thinking of the cost of replacing two coat hangers, I should have been thinking, "I am prosperous and can afford to buy two new coat hangers. In fact, I am rolling in dough and can afford much nicer coat hangers."

It was after midnight when I reshaped the hangers into Ls (okay, they looked more like squared off Cs). I had some fat straws hanging around from somewhere (what? Do you throw stuff out?). I put the straws onto one end of the coat hangers to make handles. I held onto the straws so the hangers could swing freely and tell me my mood. My cat, though, had other ideas. She saw the ends of the coat hangers swinging in midair and thought they were cat toys. So it was late, I was tired, and the cat wanted to play. I soon just went to bed.

I tried again with the wands in the morning. I was supposed to think of something bad or sad, so the wands would swing inward, their ends touching. I thought of something from about 12 years ago that usually still gets me upset. No dice. Both wands swung to the right, then to the left, then settled wide open. Wide open is what they are supposed to do when I am calm and happy and thinking positive thoughts. I thought happy thoughts, and the wands stayed open. I guess I was just in a good mood and nothing was going to get me down. That’s not so bad, really.

I put the wands away for another day. Maybe if I use them on a day I feel anxious, I'll get a different result. Maybe there is a way to use them while meditating, a kind of homemade biofeedback machine. It's worth a shot, anyway.

So … it was a few days later. I awoke early – too early, but that’s what I usually do. Maybe I should manifest a good night’s sleep. I had a headache and a dull, creeping anxiety, nothing major, just a lot of things to remember about work. So I remembered the wands. The left one swung all the way to the left, while the right one took its time, first going left, then all the way to the right. I suppose that means I have nothing to worry about. Or am open to new ideas. Or the wands just like to be all the way open. Or maybe - just maybe - the biofeedback thing works and when I hold the wands I calm my mind enough to make them wide open. It may not be such a crazy thought.

And the being prosperous and rolling in dough thing? Well, I need to be careful what I wish for. Just last week, I was talking with "Linda," a colleague about how she has the best desk in the office, because it is in the back, in the corner. This week, she resigned, so not only will I get her desk, I'll get to run one of the houses she runs in addition to the one house I currently run (and Linda's other house will go to another colleague). With a second house comes a little more salary. (Though in human services, "rolling in dough" is a bit of a stretch."

Experiment #2

In the second experiment in E-Squared, you give the Universe 48 hours to show you something. The question: “Do I see only what I expect to see?”

The first 24 hours, I was supposed to look for green cars or “sunset-beige” cars (what is sunset-beige?). I chose green, because it doesn’t seem to be a common car color and because I figured it was easier to define than sunset-beige. And, so far, I have never owned a green car. I’m not sure I’ve ever even driven a green car. We tend to see the cars we drive – that’s what is behind Pam Grout’s theory.

The second 24 hours, I was supposed to look for butterflies.

I thought, even as I wrote it down and set out about my day, that it would be much more likely that I would see butterflies the first day and green cars the second day. I had plans to take a bike ride along the bike trail with a friend on day 1, while day 2 would be a workday in the city. I sure hoped I didn’t see any cars on the bike trail, except maybe where I had to cross roads.

Thus, on day 1, I saw 2 green cars and numerous butterflies, too numerous to count. One butterfly was kind enough to stay still long enough that I could photograph it. I even saw 3 fake butterflies on a friend’s curtains, butterflies she didn’t even know were there until I pointed them out. I guess the decorations were put there by her son. I even saw, crawling along the bike trail, a huge future butterfly. I’d have stopped to photograph it if I weren’t struggling to keep up with my friend at the time.

Day 2, I counted green cars. I counted 27 passenger vehicles, 2 big trucks, and 2 farm tractors on the way to work. I counted the trucks and tractors separately, because I had failed to define “car,” and I wasn’t sure if other vehicles should count. Cars, pickup trucks, vans … I was sure they counted as cars. But those big, multi-wheeled trucks that haul stuff? Maybe not so much. I counted another 13 passenger vehicles taking a client to an appointment. I decided in the interest of public safety that I would stop actively looking and counting, but that I could still notice.

I did agonize over whether a particular car was really green or some other color. Some cars show up as greenish, but they are also grayish. There are 50 shades of gray car out there. At least 50. Maybe it is more like 150 shades of gray. So I counted anything that remotely resembled green.

On day 2, I also saw one, large fake butterfly on a fence. And forgot that I passed a butterfly museum, which has a lot of fake butterflies outside (so much for being observant). I remembered and saw some of those butterflies on the way home.

Day 3: the experiment was officially over, but I still hadn’t had a chance to read the next experiment in the book. I was still skeptical about the Universe just handing me green cars on a silver platter, as if my searching for green cars caused the owners of the green cars to get sudden urges to get into their cars and drive into my view so I could get proof of a point. And I didn’t know what it would prove, anyway, since I didn’t have any data on how many green cars I saw before I started the experiment. How could this experiment be quantifiable?

So on day 3 I looked for yellow cars. Yellow is easy to see. I saw a cab. I saw a van with a company logo. Should I count those? They aren’t private vehicles. How about those yellow construction equipment vehicles? It was then that I realized I was overthinking the whole thing. The point wasn’t that the Universe was putting these things in my way so I could see them, the point was that I was seeing them and noticing them because I was looking for them. I was noticing all green or yellow vehicles because I was actively deciding to notice them.

This isn’t such a profound revelation: 99% of the time, when I go looking for something, I can find it. Write a 20-page paper to support an opinion, complete with citations from at least 5 sources? Check! For some reason, it’s easy for me to find articles that are remotely relevant to my point of view and to twist them somehow to support my argument. That’s how I got through college and grad school. That’s what people do with the Bible to support just about any view imaginable.

Experiment #1

The first experiment in E-Squared is to tell the Universe that is has 48 hours to make itself known. You are expecting a present on a silver platter, something that cannot be written off by coincidence. At the end of 48 hours, you will have either proved or disproved your hypothesis that there is a 24/7 force out there ready to do your bidding.

The first morning, on National Public Radio, there was a news item led off by a snippet from Star Trek about the Vulcan mind meld and something about Spock and the other person being connected. I didn't catch all of this, as this is what first got my attention. The story itself was about some experiment in which one guy was in front of a video game and another – in a completely different location – was to press a key to send a missile to destroy a spaceship when the first guy thought about it. The second guy pressed the key and the spaceship was destroyed. End of story, apparently. No repeating it to see if it was anything more than coincidence. No swapping places to see if it still worked the other way around.

I didn’t take this as my “gift” from the Universe. It was just a cool story, but one that left me wanting more. I need to know more about the experiment to know if this really, truly proved that our minds really, truly are connected. But think of the implications for people who are paralyzed! Could they think about moving something and have it happen? Telekinesis may be real? (And believe me, I spent a large part of my childhood trying to move things with my mind, to no avail. If I had one super power, that’s the one I wanted. That or invisibility, and I think I have achieved that – just witness all the cars that don’t stop for me while I am at a crosswalk.)

Then at work, I took a client grocery shopping. That’s part of my job, doing the grocery shopping and ensuring they have nutritious things to eat (not that they all eat the nutritious things I buy – my influence goes only so far). After we were done, “Sue*” got into my car as I put the cart into the little “house” provided for it. I thought I saw “Jennifer” pull up in the spot next to the cart house. Jennifer is a former supervisor and doesn’t live in that city. Why she would be there on a Saturday morning, I had no idea. I went to my car and backed out. Then I saw a woman carrying her son past my car. I looked at her, she looked at me. It was Jennifer – wasn’t it? I rolled the passenger window down and we chatted a few minutes. And Jennifer chatted with Sue, as Jennifer had run the house Sue lives in a few years ago.

This encounter may have been coincidence or it may have been my gift from the Universe. While it was not outside the realm of possibility to run into Jennifer at any given time, why would it be on a Saturday morning? But the best – and oddest – part (I think, anyway) was that I had seen "Sara" the day before, a woman who had had a baby around the same time Jennifer did. I mentioned this to Sara and said that I had seen Jennifer briefly a few months previously, but had never met her son. So … odd that I would suddenly, less than 24 hours later, run into Jennifer (figuratively, at least - I did not hit her with my car) and meet her son.

So … maybe that was my gift, but I wanted to keep looking. That seemed too easy. So later on in the day, while at the group home, the smoke detector suddenly sounded. I looked up and saw smoke – only it really wasn’t smoke - I had dirty glasses. The alarm stopped soon after it started, but I stood on a chair and sounded it again until everyone got out of the house. I needed to do a fire drill before the middle of the month, and this was going to count. It was on my to-do list, if not on my mind at the time. I think the Force was just helping me out by reminding me of this fact. Or the batteries were dying in one or more of the smoke detectors. After determining that the house was not, in fact, on fire, and after everyone was safely back inside, I went around the house and counted all the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors so I could purchase batteries for them all.

My conclusion was that I didn’t get any “clear signs” that couldn’t be written off as coincidence, but I did experience two coincidences (or three, if you count the radio show) that did seem just a little more than chance. Cool things happened, but cool things happen all the time. I don’t know if that day was any more special than any other. Or maybe I’m a hard sell.

*I run a group home for adults with developmental disabilities. I like my clients to have names to personalize my stories, but I can’t use their real names for lots of reason. Therefore, I will use common names for my clients and change key aspects of their identities for the sake of a good story. Likewise, I’ll change the names of colleagues and friends – to ensure privacy and avoid any possible embarrassment. Friends: if you read this and want to out yourselves, be my guest!

And so it begins...

One of my all-time favorite books is not one book but two, often lumped together as one: Alice in Wonderland. It’s all about improbable stuff and it’s where I got the title of this blog. This blog is about the impossible, though perhaps all things are, in fact, possible. Quantum physics suggests this is so, that a whole bunch of things that seem not to be possible just might be possible. Michio Kaku makes these theories accessible to the lay person in Physics of the Impossible (2008). Audrey Hepburn said it best: “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible.’”

One of my favorite movies isn’t one movie but six: Star Wars. The plot and dialog are kind of stupid if you examine them too closely, but their underlying premise is cool: there is a mystical Force behind everything. But the Force isn’t just for the movies. It’s real. The Chinese call it qi or ki or chi. It makes everything possible – and gives us great Scrabble words. Another name for the Force is God. (Exactly who said God is a person? A male person, at that? Humans need to put things into terms they understand, so they anthropomorphize things.) I was raised in a specific religion and was taught the tenets of that religion. I happen to think – believe – that this isn’t all there is. There is something valid to all religions. (Or maybe I should qualify that by saying I think there is something valid to all major religions. There are some fringes out there. I’m not talking about them.)

I have The Secret (Rhonda Byrne, 2006). I tried to read it. I really did. I couldn’t get past all the testimonials. Apparently, that’s all the book is, one person after another saying good things about some deep, dark secret. However, there is no secret. Basically, it’s about how if you look for something, you will find it. I’ve known that all along. Think positively, and positive things will happen. And vice versa. (Though for the longest time, it worked just the opposite for me: the things I worried about never occurred. Since worrying worked, I kept worrying. There was a payoff. But eventually, anxiety gets the better of you and you have a disorder. And then bad things start happening, the things you start worrying about start coming true. Or at least they did for me.)

Enter E-Squared: NineDo-It-Yourself Energy Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality (Pam Grout, 2012). Just as the label says, she has written a book with 9 experiments so you can prove to yourself that there really is – or is not – a Force out there rewarding positive thinking.

And that’s where I am right now. Reading the book and doing the experiments. We’ll see how it goes.