While sitting at dinner with friends the other night, we discussed our most dominant childhood memories.  Some stories made me laugh to the point of tears and others…not so much. What struck me most in the telling of these tales was the idea that one thing (an object, location, etc) could be viewed so differently by two different people. If this is true, then does it follow that all objects are subject to individual interpretation? Are we simply attaching our own meaning to these objects and places? After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, as the saying goes.

Let me explain….

When my friend Carrie was about 7 years old, she was seated in the back row of the school bus with a friend to go home after the last day of first grade.  As the bus was making a stop to let someone off, a Thomas’ English Muffin truck slammed into the back of the bus. Carrie’s friend turned around when she heard the truck tires squealing and got a face full of glass as the back windows shattered. The driver wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and was hanging halfway through the windshield. How horrified these children must have been! Needless to say, my girlfriend was forever traumatized by this unfortunate incident and would never be able to look at Thomas’ English muffins the same way again.  She couldn’t order one in a restaurant or have them in her house as an adult!

What struck me most about her telling of the story was not the terrible accident, but, rather, my love of Thomas’ English muffins! I have my own story about English muffins and it centers around Sunday afternoons in my house growing up. After Sunday school I’d come home for lunch to a toasted Thomas’ English muffin with a bit of butter and a slice of Muenster cheese.  It was the Sunday staple that my mom made for me.  Accompanied by the Shirley Temple movie that was being shown on TV that week, this was heaven for me. To me, that Thomas' English muffin represented comfort, caring and consistency.

How liberating would it be to choose to see everything in its most positive light? Can we reframe our perspective of anything if we choose to? It is possible. Memento Mori asks us to Love Our Fate (AMOR FATI).  We are able to love and embrace it ALL if framed correctly. After all, it wasn’t the Thomas’ English muffins, per se, that caused the accident, just as it could have been any brand of English muffins that my mom had served.