Life Is a Bowlful of -- Jello?

I don’t want to seem to be pushing a name brand but I have been thinking a lot about Jello of late. You know, the sweet, fruity, wiggly stuff that used to be a fixture at everything from family meals to church dinners.

I’ve been thinking about Jello because of the metaphors that surround it and what they have to say about us and our lives.

For instance, consider the phrase “He’s set for life.” Has a good ring to it, doesn’t it? It conjures up the image of a person who, in the liquid, changeable state of his (or her) youth, stumbled upon something that would influence the shape of his (or her) future.

You might say that he found a mold, poured his intellect and energies into it, and now has jelled. Even if you take the mold away, the shape of that person’s life will be preserved. He’s set for life.

That has a positive connotation. You never hear that said of a ne’er-do-well (except in his own fantasies about the latest get-rich-quick scheme.). You never hear it said of a failure, someone who undoubtedly tried, who poured his intellect and energies into something but, for some reason, it never really “jelled”.

That is because, I suppose, the ne’er-do-well never really pours his intellect and energies into anything of substance and the failure – well, maybe the failure poured himself into the wrong mold or maybe he just didn’t have the right mindset.

Mindset. That has become something of a catch-word in the self-help industry of late. You have to have the right mindset, they tell us, to accomplish anything. You have to have the right mindset to be able to be “set for life.”

Think about a gray, convoluted gelatinous mass. Having trouble picturing it? It is what you are thinking with. Your brain. The mind, the thinking, understanding, planning function of human activities is, in our culture, centered in the brain. Other cultures, in other times, thought the heart was the center of such activity. There are those who will tell you that men think with their – well, never mind. I digress.

Gelatinous is a longer way of saying “jello-y”. The idea of mindset seems to be that your thoughts are like warm jello – they flow all over the place without rhyme nor reason – without direction. We all know how easy it is for our thoughts to flow along negative pathways – the path of least resistance.

So we need to ride herd on our thoughts (Whoop ti ki i aye, git along little dogie: you know that abundance will be your new home), corral them – shape them, if you will – mold them into a more positive mindset.

But, once we get “set for life” with a proper mindset, we – particularly those of us who are Baby Boomers – run the risk of becoming “set” in our ways. You know the phrase: “She’s getting old and set in her ways.”

This implies that our minds, our attitudes, and our lives have been molded into one shape for so long that we can no longer get them out of the mold. The mold becomes for some of us a sort of armor that we use to protect ourselves from change.

Change can be scary, especially when it is forced upon us by circumstances. But let’s think about molds for a moment. I have a ring mold that is heavy glass. It is sturdy, but it is breakable. If I pour my liquid jello into it and chill it until it is set, then drop the mold, the chances are that the mold will break and the jello will splatter.

Some molds are metal. If they are dropped, the dent that is caused translates itself into the jello. Instead of having a nice, symmetrical crown mold of gleaming jello, for instance, you end up with a nice, unsymmetrical crown mold.

The new silicon molds, on the other hand, are flexible. You can actually bend them inside out and they bounce back to their original shape. In a sense, they are not afraid to change and the jello they contain is able to change if need be.

That flexibility is key. In humans we call it “adaptability”. That ability to adapt is vital in the face of the knocks and blows that life throws at us.

If you thought you were “set for life” and something happened to undermine that security, you need to adapt to your new circumstances and re-tool your mindset away from resentment, fear, or any other negative emotion.

If somehow things just never seemed to “jell” for you, probe to see what negative thoughts, self-limitations, doubts, and other negative “stuff” is blocking your best intentions.

If you are “set in your ways” (whether you are old or not), consider breaking out of your mold and adapting to the inevitable changes in your life gracefully. You might be surprised what life has to offer you.