It's All In the Mind

A salesman had a flat tyre somewhere out in the countryside. He opened his trunk and looked for his jack, but it wasn't there.

"Hmm ... no what do I do?" he said to himself.

Since he was stranded on a small country road on a hot summer day, he doubted anyone would drive by to help. He spotted the spire of a church in the distance and decided to walk to the nearest village and borrow a jack.

It was a long way and the sun was blazing. On the way he thought, "I hope someone in that town has a jack he can lend me."

As he walked further, sweating profusely, a thought struck him: "I know what the people around here are like. They don't take kindly to strangers."

He plodded along and chewed on that thought. "Since they don't know me, I really don't think anyone is going to lend me a jack."

"So he continued walking and imagining the worst possible outcome to his predicament ... no one in the town would be willing to lend him a jack; people would be so suspicious they'd even refuse to sell him one, and so on;

By the time he got to the village he was so upset that he made straight for its square and started shouting: "All right, since that's the way you feel, you can keep your damn jack!"

Sent to Starmag by Gilbert Tan