BY ROMMEL YNION
LOS ANGELES – While wrapping up my very fruitful trip here in the United States both for business and leisure – of course, all of us deserve a respite one way or another to spend our “me” time once in a while – I have to hammer out this column before I leave on Friday; and suffice it to say, that by the time this column sees the light of day, I will be airborne already en route to Manila.
But what can I write now as I have mountains of stuff to chuck into balikbayan boxes and luggages now clamoring for my attention? Nope, I have never been afflicted with writer’s block; I am just wondering if what is crossing my mind now is appropriate to share with you, my dear readers.
Unlike other columnists who do research before writing their columns, I always write empty-handed, all my ideas just overflowing my mind receptive to what I intend to do with them. In short, most of the ideas I share with you are just of the off-the-cuff nature, culled from the repository of mental notes my mind has gathered in my 45 years of existence in this dizzyingly crazy world.
Let me just pin down one of the ideas whirling around my mind now; it’s just the book that changed my life – reminded as I am now of the world of books as catalysts for change as I am surrounded by stacks of them picked up at Barnes and Noble here in Los Angeles. Before I veer away from it, let me introduce the book to you: “Psycho-cybernetics”, written by Maxwell Maltz in 1960.
I read this book sometime in the summer of 1988 when I took the year off from the academe to just plunge into the voyage of self-discovery; but that’s another story, better left untouched until a more opportune time to delve into it in a more detailed fashion. It was a time I had to understand what makes a human being tick – and as if by magic, “Psycho-cybernetics” served as the genie that opened to me a world of understanding that has served me in good stead all these years.
“Psycho-cybernetics”, written by a plastic surgeon who changed people’s lives by just fixing the way they “look”, crystallizes the nature of a human being as simply a mind with a body. Okay, that may be too hard a stuff to swallow and digest at this point, coming in as it does like a meteor hurtling into our brains more accustomed to inactivity and inertia.
Let me then discuss it more palatably in layman’s language. Maxwell Maltz, who has seen how his patients’ lives changed for the better after undergoing plastic surgery, discovered that there is always a chasm between self-confidence and lack thereof – and that is self-image, influenced by how a person sees himself.
Maltz underscored that more often than not, after fixing how his patients look through plastic surgery, they become totally different people – from creatures looking like deflated tires to human beings exuding the aura of world conquerors.
This change of self-image is then the catalyst that changes a person’s life. In a nutshell, an engine is to a ship what self-image is to a human being. Yes, self-image is the sine qua non of our existence, the software that determines the nature of our “outputs” in the real world.
People, equipped with a healthy self-image, see themselves in their mind’s eye as competent enough to undertake whatever tasks set before them, whether self-imposed or forced upon them by circumstance. And as Maltz said, these are the only kind of individuals who are ready to take on life’s challenges.
As their mind’s eye enables them to see the world as their stage of greatness, they then set out to scintillate on it, setting goals that define their mission in life, working hard toward accomplishing them, and achieving them with courage, perseverance and faith.
Man is a goal-striving being; without goals, he is like a rudderless boat, tossed to and fro in the sea of life. But only men who have positive self-image can perform their mandate on earth. A bitter pill of truth to swallow for most men but still a capsule of realities nonetheless – the intake of which will definitely make life easier for them.
The concept of man who is nothing without goals is what changed my life. That is why I have always had goals I imposed on myself; in the process, my life gets better everyday in every way. And this would not have been possible had I allowed that book to slip out of my grasp when I first saw it, yellowing with age in a bargain bookstore in Cubao a lifetime ago.
For those of you then, my dear readers, who seem to be tossed to and fro in the sea of life, aimless, directionless, meaningless, “Psycho-cybernetics” may be the book for you. In this day and age where books can be culled from the Internet at the click of the mouse, you can easily ordain Maxwell Waltz to rise from the dead and share with you the secret of the ages like a wise old friend would. Try it. It may be a life-changing moment for you as it was for me./PN
