This morning I wrapped up a house sitting gig then came home, made breakfast, and unpacked. Well, sort of. I brought my bags in from the car. Now they’re on my bedroom floor. Anyway, after breakfast (and a nap), I read The Magician’s Nephew, book one of seven in The Chronicles of Narnia (and just before The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), by CS Lewis. Somehow I missed this book as a child, but, y’all, it’s delightful. It’s about a young girl named Polly and her friend Digory, who get swept off to a number of different worlds thanks to Digory’s less than integrous uncle, who likes to dabble in magic. Along the way they encounter a terrible witch and, eventually, end up in Narnia, thus setting the stage for six more books about the same enchanting land.

Seven books in total. If you put them side by side, they’re thicker than a brick. What a beautiful, creative mind that CS Lewis (his friends and family called him Jack) clearly had. Sometimes my writer friends and I talk about what it must take as a fiction writer to build an entire world. I thought about this as I read The Magician’s Nephew today, and it seemed clear to me that Lewis must have had a map laid out for the series from the beginning. For example, both a lamppost and a wardrobe are prominent features in The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe, and the origin of each is explained in The Magician’s Nephew. When I read this I thought, This guy was thinking ahead. However, this was not the case, since The Magician’s Nephew was THE LAST book in the series to be penned. So what Lewis actually did was create something out of thin air (Narnia) then go back later and explain how it got there.

In other words, he was thinking behind.

This evening I finished reading Defy Gravity by Caroline Myss, and one of the points she drives home over and over (and over) again is that you will never, ever (ever) get a satisfactory answer to the question “Why did this happen to me?” I mean, Abraham didn’t get one. Moses didn’t get one. Jesus (the son of God) didn’t get one. Why should you? (Why should I?) And yet something shitty happens, and we all wonder–Why me? Caroline calls this a child’s question, and I think it has to do with the fact that most of us are much better at thinking behind than we are thinking ahead.

I’ll explain.

There’s a story about a man with poor eyesight who’s fishing on a quiet lake and notices another boat approaching him. However, thinking the other boat will turn away, he goes back to fishing. Next thing he knows, the boat has run into him, nearly tipping him into the water. Well, the man is pissed off and starts on this tirade (like you probably do in traffic sometimes). Who the hell do you think you are? and so on. He’s thinking the driver of the other boat is a real asshat. Probably did it on purpose. Like most of us, he wants some answers. However, then the man realizes the boat is unoccupied. Maybe it got loose from the harbor, he thinks. Quickly, he calms down. He even laughs at himself. Boy, I really made a big deal out of nothing.

If the point’s not obvious, it’s that often in life we get hit–physically, emotionally. Shit happens. However, as if almost getting knocked over (physically, emotionally), weren’t enough, we create a narrative about the situation. We think BEHIND and IMAGINE that the other person (or God, even) was out to get us. We take things personally. Of course, you might think, But what if the guy really had been hit by another driver? (I’ve been rear-ended before, and the car that did it was most certainly occupied.) But what’s the difference whether someone was in the boat or not or whether or not they did it on purpose? Either way, you got hit.

So here’s an option. Instead of thinking behind, you could think ahead. Okay, I got hit. NOW what am I gonna do?

This weekend while house sitting I took my friend’s dog for several walks. Honestly, it wasn’t best neighborhood, and I found myself doing what I often do–making judgments. Like, That’s a nice house, that’s a real piece-of-shit house, and so on. Well, if you want to know how to build a world, this is how you do it. What I mean is that the world as it exists is devoid of inherent meaning. My therapist says the universe is neutral. If you want to test this theory out, take a friend–just one honest friend–on a walk or to an art gallery and start comparing notes. What’s beautiful in your eyes will be rubbish in theirs. You’ll walk outside on a cloudy day and think, Disgusting, and your friend will think, Glorious.

In the last example, what we essentially have, at least for a moment, is two different worlds. That is, you’ll be living in a disgusting world, and your friend will be living in a glorious one. Byron Katie says, “Who created the world? You did.” Now, this doesn’t mean that you created the clouds in the sky, but it does mean that you–and you alone–created how you perceived or interpreted those clouds, and this means everything.

It means you’re more powerful than you’ve been giving yourself credit for.

Going back to thinking behind, whenever you do see something you dislike, let’s be clear–it’s only because you’ve reached into your past, found a negative experience, and laid its memory on top of your present moment, or, perhaps, your future. Let’s say I were to invite you on a skiing trip and you said, “No, I hate skiing.” Granted, maybe you DID hate skiing six years ago, but how do you know you’ll still hate skiing this December? You can imagine you would hate it, but how could you KNOW? You haven’t been yet.

I mean, anything could happen on those slopes. You could meet your soulmate.

Going back to The Chronicles of Narnia, it seems that thinking behind and thinking ahead are lovely skills to have for authors. And since we are all the authors of our own lives (or at least the internal narrative about our own lives), I grant that these are good skills for all of us. For example, if you’re deathly allergic to peanuts, it’s good to bring your past into the present–so you won’t die from eating peanut butter. If you want to redecorate a room or your life, it’s good to imagine what you’d like to manifest. But when you imagine another person’s (or God’s) motives or take a perfectly lovely day (what did THOSE clouds ever do to you?) and turn it into something disgusting–and thus cause yourself upset or distress–this is misusing your beautiful, creative mind.