We’ve all heard the question, “Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?” ad infinitum, or ad nauseam, depending on your perspective. But could it be, that this simple question contains a wisdom that will unlock the door to unparalleled self-expression? Could it be the question that leads us to sublime reality – an understanding of our reality that is expansive and beautiful?
Bear with me for a moment and please considering some thoughts of just a few of our greatest, and now deceased, thought leaders.
“It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are themselves.”
— Carl Jung
“If you can dream it, then you can achieve it.”
— Zig Zigglar
“Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
These greats are suggesting that if we believe, dream, and see it, then we can achieve it. In the more widely held mass belief system of modern culture we are taught, and even raised to believe in, cause and effect. That if we work hard, keep our noses to the grind stone, make friends with the right people, do good in school, study hard, and strive to do more each day that we will find success. We also hear from many though leaders like Brian Tracy teaching about the importance of goals and goal setting.
These attributes are all admirable and important enough, however if we consider the quotes above in the context of the chicken-or-the-egg exercise, then could it be that belief in one’s self precedes the result. Could it be that we become able to work hard, keep our noses to the grind stone, make friends with the right people, and so on, merely because we believe we can do it.
Eleanor Roosevelt also said, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” Suggesting that by launching ourselves into some unknowable task that we are, in essence, believing that we will find a way. And then as Gandhi suggested when we believe that we will find a way, that we create the conditions for that to happen.
If we break from the common belief paradigm and open our minds to the notion that the chicken-or-the-egg question may be answerable only in the realm of understanding that our beliefs are what determine our outcomes, then we can expand our sense of reality from one of materialistic cause and effect, to a feeling of sublime reality – that our thoughts create our reality, and that as we think more positively, more expansively, more lovingly, and more peacefully, we will naturally create a world that moves in harmony.
So which comes first, the chicken or the egg? In this understanding it’s our belief in self, in our knowing (whether seemingly justified or not) that we can realize our dreams. Then together with action, we can only move in the direction of our vision.
Then the next question to ponder is, “How big is your vision?” But, we’ll save that for next time.
May you remain in expansive, peaceful, loving thoughts in the New Year and beyond.
