There are times when someone gives me a book at just the right time, and recently that happened when I received a gift in the mail on my birthday of a book I had not heard of before. I had been invited last fall to participate in a focus group for a new online course that was being created. The topic was one that is important to my work and the organization that invited me to participate is one that always has wonderful resources. Because the course was a new one and the online platform was being tested, the course was made available for free to those of us who helped with giving feedback in both the actual course and the online website experience. The course was excellent and being able to take it was a gift in itself, and then a little while afterward I received a message from the organization that was testing the program that I'd done so many things to help them and had answered so many of their questions and requests that they wanted to send me a gift for my participation and the work I had done in support of their development process. They sent me a list with items to choose from and one that stood out to me as being something that I'd enjoy was a deck of cards with inspirational and motivational sayings printed on each one. When the package arrived, they had also included a small notebook with the words "The Best Is Yet To Come!" written on the cover and a book by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander titled, "The Art Of Possibility".
When I was younger I played viola, and in my teens I began auditioning for youth orchestras and events in the New England area. I was a member of the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra and played with All State and some of the other opportunities at different colleges and chamber music societies. At some point or other I auditioned for the New England Conservatory Youth Chamber Orchestra and though I don't remember how long I was with them, I do know that I met Benjamin Zander who at the time was a member of the faculty there. I may have met him in other places too because the classical music world tends to be that way, with many interconnections of people who are part of different groups and orchestras meeting and playing music together over time and years.
I was intrigued by the book because I sometimes use the title "The Art Of (fill in the blank)" when I am writing about very special and creative people, and the idea of the Art of Possibility was one that I liked the sound and thought of. The fact that it arrived on my birthday was another thing that made me feel like I was going to enjoy this book in a very special way, and so when I began reading it I was prepared to take it in and savor what it had to share with me.
The book is written in chapters that represent different practices that people can explore and learn and engage in to begin to open up our lives to the idea of possibility instead of seeing things as having to be one way or no way or just going about our lives feeling defeated when things don't go the way we expect or want them to. It's hard to describe here what is so special about this book except to say that it is lighthearted and joyful while still containing very deep and life changing truths. I find myself laughing and crying in very good ways, and being moved by the stories the authors tell in their examples of how the methods they have developed to find possibility can bring so much good to life and the world.
"The Art Of Possibility" is not a very new book, but its messages are timeless. Though it was published in 2000 which seems like a lifetime ago now, its messages are as fresh as if they had just sprung out of the pages today. We need more books like this in our world, stories that bring creative thinking to every day challenges and that have the ability to help us look outside of ourselves and our own preconceived ideas to see that what is available to us is always abundance and joy and new beginnings if we can only choose to think outside the boxes that hold our expectations and past experiences and allow for something new to grow.
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