Visualization

I recently came across something called Plato's Allegory of the cave - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave. I read quite a bit around the allegory and have tried to relate it to me and my thoughts. Read below...

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I realized that my understanding of the world, my interaction with people and my behavior with people is all determined by the story I create in my own mind. I started probing the mental image I have created of myself and of the people around me. I found it weird that some images of people are my own creations, an exaggerated static painting of my feelings towards the person. Try it, give it a minute, just think of a person you know and think about the image of the person that flashes in your mind.

But what we don't realize is that the person you knew yesterday is not the same person today. So, does that not make the mental image invalid? I heard a great adage which goes on the lines that the person who starts a sentence is not the same person when he gets to the end of the sentence. The person you were angry with yesterday is not the same person today. This analogy and adage to an extent opened my mind up about my behavior and attitude towards people. I realized that the image I leave in my mind can be detrimental to my personal and professional relationships.

And what about my own image of myself. Well, I realized that I sometimes (or most of the times) allow the image to be distorted by people around me. Rather, the perceived feelings of people around me, people I care about controls the image I carry. Doesn't sound like the right thing to do, does it? Probably not.

Co-incidentally, at the same time, I stumbled upon techniques used by sports people to train their mind and focus on the game (Cricketers to be more specific, Sachin to be even more specific!). I read that they use visualization techniques to visualize the game and to feel the environment before going into the game.

So, can I use visualization to mould images stored in my mind. Probably worth giving it a try I reckon, will let you know how I get on with it.