June 23, 2005
It’s Just a Tool
There is a man stuck in a tiny clearing in the middle of an impassible jungle. If he stays in the clearing there is no doubt that he will either die a horrible death as a result of starvation or of being eaten by a tiger or other wild animal. There is no way he can escape because the jungle is so thick that he can’t even walk through it.
Suddenly he finds a machete in the ground near the edge of the vegetation. Is this good or bad?
Many people would say that it is good because he can use the machete to chop his way to safety.
On the other hand, what if he believes that he will either die a horrible death as a result of starvation or of being eaten by a tiger or other wild animal and uses the machete to slit his own throat?
Was finding the machete a good thing or a bad thing? The answer to that question is yes. It was a good thing or a bad thing based on what perspective he chose to take. The machete was just a tool. He chose how to use it.
I see Attention Deficit Disorder in a very similar light. It’s a tool. If you choose to you can cause it to debilitate you OR you can choose to use it to do wonderful things. To become like Ben Franklin or like John Lennon or like Thomas Edison…
There are whole corporations who give their employees “thinking outside the box” awards. Trying to get them to see solutions or different than “standard” ways to do things. Then there are people like us who hear about that and say “what box?”. Outside the box is where we live, we’ve never been in it, we don’t even know what it is…
Having ADD is just like the machete…It’s good or bad, depending on what perspective you elect to see it from.
