You Don’t Have to be Einstein….

Posted on | December 29, 2009 |

I was watching the TV the other night and happened upon a program about Einstein. I can’t say I understood all of the physics, but I did take away a few things.

The first is that he never doubted he was doing important work. Even when he was working as a patent office clerk, grade 3, he knew he was going to do something worthwhile. He kept the faith.

The second was that his working day would include long spells of looking out of the window, puffing on his pipe. We now know that he was turning over ideas, trying them out from different angles, while he seemed to be completely spacing out, vacant.

And I wondered how many of us allow ourselves the opportunity to gaze out upon the world and mull over ideas – preferably ideas that ask questions about how we live and who we are, rather than deciding whether or not we want another luxury in our lives. Do we give ourselves the space to think, or do we react so that ‘thinking’ falls into line with what everyone else thinks?

I know I’m guilty of being reactive. And I also know I’m guilty of feeling bad when I stare out of the window and am not ‘productive’.

But we must, all of us, make the effort to do the other kind of thinking as well. Otherwise we are prisoners of conventionalities we do not even want, most of the time.

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