Some 25 years ago I came across an exercise that brought some long lasting and interesting results. The challenge was to pick something that I wanted and mentally bless the first 7 people I saw for the next 21 days with this whatever it was (object, talent or characteristic.) This challenge was made with the promise that at the end of the 21 days the object of the blessing or the avenue or challenge to achieve it would present itself.
I picked “the ability to play the piano by ear.” It was something that I had always wanted to be able to do. I thought this would be a good test for the challenge because I considered the challenge impossible. The impossibility of the possibility of playing the piano by ear didn’t stop me. I went right ahead with the challenge.
I got up the next morning, looked out the window and blessed a jogger going by my house with the ability to play the piano ear. Someone driving by in an old car received the identical blessing. By the time I got down to my counseling office with people I worked and associated with on a daily basis I began to see the real power of the exercise. I had in about three blessings by that time.
The first person to walk through my door that morning was a working associate whom I hated with a purple passion. I don’t know how to say it any kinder than this. I really disliked this guy. As he stood there in my doorway confessing my sins, I looked up at him and calmly blessed him with the ability to play the piano by ear. The “Ever Present Voice” from the back of my mind leaped into action and shouted loudly in my head, “This is not what you usually bless this guy with. You usually bless him with death or that the earth would open up and swallow him in,” he insisted.
What an insight! All of a sudden I realized that this guy could make me angry from 6 miles away. He didn’t even have to be in the room. The epiphany that occurred to me at that moment was that it was not the guy, the object of my irritation, who was causing the problem; it was what I was thinking or what “The Ever Present Voice” was thinking about this guy that was causing the anger. I could also instantly see the reason the challenge worked. I had been blessing this guy with pain and death and that was exactly what was coming to me whenever I was around him.
Later that day a car pulled out in front of me from a stop sign. I blessed the driver with the ability to play the piano by ear. There was the “Voice” again saying, “Are you sure? You usually bless these kinds of people with the middle finger salute, broken glass and dented fenders.”
I figured I was really on to something. All kinds of thoughts were popping into my head that I had been unaware of before. The Ever Present Voice was shooting off all over the place but I wasn’t paying attention. I was into the mental blessing. I started blessing people all over the place with the ability to play the piano by ear. I became so interested at what was going on in my head that I forget the reason I started the challenge in the first place.
Five days later I was sitting in church on the same bench on the same row where I always sat. In walked the piano player and sat down at the piano. This was the same piano player at the same piano where he always sat. I was the same and in the same place. The piano player was the same and at the same piano. Everything was the same, except, this day for the first time I noticed that he didn’t use any music. The piano guy was playing by ear. He was doing what I wanted to do, what I thought was impossible I just had never noticed before.
I walked up to him after the meeting and asked him, “How do you sit here and play all these church hymns with no music?”
He said, “I can’t read music. If you want to play like I do go, down to the music store and get you a cord book. Learn a little about music theory, how some of this stuff fits together plus a few cords. In about two weeks I’ll bet you can play anything.”
I went down to the music store and found a cord book entitled, How To Play The Piano Despite years Of Lessons. It told me how to do it and two weeks later I could play that piano by ear.
Try it out. Give it a shot and let me know what happens.