Where do answers come from?

The other day I was talking to an interviewee from one of our film shoots and the topic of the conversation was threefold;  Why do we worry about things? Where do answers for daily problems come from? And why can we sometimes not sleep at night because of our thoughts?

This got me thinking.  I’m a worrier, I churn things around in my head over and over again.  This can be things I  need to do, things I need to say, things that I may have said.  I don’t lose sleep over it but it’s a regular thought process for me.

These thoughts often make things seem a lot worse than they really are.

Talking to John made us both realise we are the same, not just John and I but quite possibly everybody.  Perhaps not to extremes but certainly to a varying level.  John ranks high in my list of wise people I have met, yet still he loses sleep at night because he stresses about sometimes the simplest of problems.

The biggest problem is we still look for answers when we already know them but deep down we don’t want to take action for whatever reason.

Of course there are many external factors to take into account when it comes to stress, but the bottom line is we often make ourselves feel a heck of a lot worse about it by delaying a course of action.

One possible remedy for this is to limit the amount of options you have for a solution to maybe 3 possible answers.  When you have 3 then think sensibly about what the outcome of each one could be.  Then dig a little deeper, you probably already know which answer is best.  At this point stop and take action.  Don’t wait for somebody to tell you what to do, after all nobody know you better than you know yourself.

I reckon more often that not you’ll produce the right answer without even trying too hard.

I’ll give it a try and if I fall over into a quivering wreck you’ll know why.

Remember, the answer often comes from within.

Out of Body Experience

I’m getting all spiritual today… no not really but I would like to recommend taking stock of things once in while and getting out of that tired old body that you live in.  Looking through our own eyes we are limited to only half of the view, 180 degrees if you like.

This afternoon I witnessed a conversation between 2 people here in the office.  It was a bit like a game of ping pong with neither person sending the ball home or holding onto the ball in the first place.  

As an observer did I have a solution to what was being talked about?  No, not this time but looking at it from a 3rd perspective did at least give me a view of the overall picture and an outsiders perception to reflect back after the conversation was over.

With computer games it was all the rage a little while ago to develop them from a first person perspective for 2 reasons; for the gamer to get inside the head of the character and because the computer/console wasn’t powerful enough to render you character as well as the background.  Now computers are more powerful many games have adopted the 3rd person over the shoulder view, which gives the player the benefit of seeing things coming up behind them too.

More often than not we should start looking at things from another angle, another perspective, another persons view, the view of the audience, the view of the user, the customers view, etc. etc.

As a film maker I often do it for my job as I can visualize shots from a different angle, but I need to start doing more as an everyday activity.