Epiphany

The situation was this - I was at summer camp. In the cafeteria, it was PBJ day.
I was making my PBJ sammich and struggling to carefully spread just the right layer of jam on the peanut butter, not too thick, and perfectly evenly spread so that I got a bit of jam with every bite. My friend looked at me and my careful effort and said “Umm, why don’t you just spread the jam on the other piece of bread.”

Seems obvious eh? For me it was a bombshell. I had learned how to make my own PBJ at somebody's knee, and that somebody had always done it this way and I learned it this way. I hadn’t stretched my mind beyond what I was taught.

I was suddenly faced with the idea that:
(A) I could no longer accept at face value anything I was told was best, right, or the correct way to do and/or be.
(B) There are probably myriad other, better ways to accomplish things than the old tried and true.
(C) There apparently were other realities outside my narrow view and I wanted to know what they were.
(D) Basically it boiled down to THINK FOR YOURSELF!

It seems trite and weird but I’m telling you, it changed my life.
This moment stands out in such crystal clarity for me, I have thought about it almost every day for over 30 years.( Maybe because I have a peanut butter sandwich almost every day, I’ve given up jam though). It is a constant reminder to look at everything from every angle I can conceive of and then wait some more before judging to see if another conception pops up.
I think it triggered my analytical mind in a way it hadn’t been before. Some might say that is not such a great thing, as I spend a lot of time overanalyzing everything.

(This is a picture of me at that summer camp either the year of, or the year after my big epiphany)