ABSTRACT
By contrast with expectations and emotions, the need for time to consider an experience, to reflect upon it and seek whatever insights it offers, was one of the last of the elements in the Model to be incorporated. It did not exist in the penultimate version which I was discussing with Sam, a friend who runs a busy training organization, when she said, gesturing to the Model with its many clouds and arrows, ‘Of course, most people would never have the time needed for all this!’ She had a point, and she compelled me to go back to all the interviews I had had with people who clearly had made time to consider their experiences, and to wonder why they had managed to find the time in their busy lives to come to conclusions which had great significance for them. (Interestingly, Sam herself illustrated one way in which busy people make time, as we shall see later in this chapter.)
Part of the answer probably lay in the previous two elements, expectations and emotions, because severely shaken expectations and strongly aroused emotions would thrust the experience to the top of one’s consciousness. In this way they would be like physical experiences, cutting or burning oneself, or other traumatic experiences like the near-accident with the child in Chapter 3. The sheer strength of the experience compels both attention and the desire to learn – generally what not to do in the future. For these kinds of experience, opportunity is not optional; it is compulsory.
