I’m an enthusiastic user of Instagram. Not from the point of view of posting on it, but from the point of view of absorbing helpful wisdom from the reels that other people post.

So it was that recently I rediscovered a longtime personal development guru called Brian Tracy. Or, to put it more accurately, an information video he made at some point in the past, which someone else has cut up and issues in bite-sized morsels. And one of these morsels caught my attention as being particularly tasty:

“Start every morning by saying, ‘I believe something wonderful is going to happen to me today.’ Repeat it over and over again.” ~ Brian Tracy

Back in my personal development training days in the late naughties, I attended a few events at which Brian Tracy made presentations. His message didn’t get through to me, though. The clips on IG were filmed earlier, when his personal energy seemed friendlier somehow, and I really enjoy them.

Anyway, I started doing it this week. Every morning before getting out of bed, I repeat that I believe something wonderful is going to happen to me today. I also include this statement in my morning prayers. And sure enough, at least one wonderful thing has happened to me every single day.

Yesterday, I found myself face-to-face at the Toronto SGI centre with a lady I haven’t seen or talked with since my early years of Buddhist practice in Montreal in the 1980s. It was such a lovely surprise! Then in the afternoon, I went for a short walk with friends on the residential streets of west Toronto, and we spotted snowdrops! (If you know anything about the length and severity of Canadian winters, then you understand why that was so wonderful!)

Now here’s the thing. If I wasn’t programming my mind to expect something wonderful, would I have the same kind of appreciation for these occurrences? It’s quite likely, for example, that I could have experienced the snowdrops as something “nice.” But appreciating them as something wonderful takes it to a whole different level of significance .

Which brings me to the reticular activating system.

The what?!! And whatever it is, what’s it got to do with having wonderful experiences?

Bear with me. I’ll tell you.

Simply put, the reticular activating system (RAS) is part of our brain. Among other important functions, it plays a pivotal role by acting as a sophisticated gatekeeper. It sifts through the constant barrage of sensory stimuli in the environment and determines what information reaches our conscious awareness, based on relevance and importance. Relevance and importance that we have given it with our thoughts and words.

So if I’ve programmed my RAS to spot wonderful things, that’s what it searches for, and then brings to my conscious attention. The result is that my feeling about my life is that it is increasingly wonderful.

Years ago, a senior Buddhist SGI leader visited Toronto from Japan. I don’t recall his name, but I do recall that his life-condition was high. He seemed to experience life as something joyous. All these years later, what stuck with me is that he encouraged us to live with a spirit of “wow.” In other words, a spirit of wonder and appreciation. Such as believing something wonderful is going to happen today.

And appreciation, as any good Buddhist can tell you, is key to living a happy life. After all, Buddhism teaches that complaining closes the door on good fortune, whereas appreciation opens it up.

It is a sense of appreciation that elevates, enriches and expands the human spirit. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

Wow! How wonderful! 🙂

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash