Drawing of a man standing in a gray space looking at an open door with a sunny sky and bright colors outside

Einstein famously remarked that the most important decision you will ever make is whether or not to believe that the universe is friendly. One obvious response is that there really is no knowing, that any response is both philosophical and subjective… and therein lies the lesson:

As much as anything else, the answer lies in how we respond to the universe and life; we tend to attract experiences in line with our beliefs, world views, and expectations. How we interpret the world impacts how we experience the world, creating an endless cycle of stimulus and conditioned response to our interpretation thereof; oblivious to how someone else, with different beliefs, might have a very different experience of the same ‘reality’.

Put another way, our beliefs are in large measure self-confirming; confirmation bias is rampant, out of an environment with an overwhelming of potential input, we filter so automatically that we lose awareness that we are doing so and thus we tend to ‘see’ mainly what we are looking for, not realizing the wider world available to us.

I choose to believe the universe, in large measure, is a friendly place or at least I’ve the ability to nudge my little corner of it in that direction.

Closing Quotes:

“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.” – Lao Tzu, 6th Century BC

“I am always in quest of being open to what the universe will bring me.” – Jill Bolte Taylor

“Follow your bliss, and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.” – Joseph Campbell, 1904-1987

“The Universe doesn’t give you what you ask for with your thoughts, it gives you what you demand with your actions.” – Steve Maraboli

“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.” – Aldous Huxley, 1894-1963, Brave New World

“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.” – Paulo Coelho, b. 1947, The Alchemist

“I have a naive trust in the universe – that at some level it all makes sense, and we can get glimpses of that sense if we try.” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1934-2021, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier