Check Your Thoughts

Our thoughts are autonomous and free of our control. We can’t deliberately program what we think. Consequently, thoughts are often inappropriate and counterproductive. If we obeyed all of our thoughts, our behavior would be erratic and irrational. Thankfully, there is a pause, always, between what we think and how we act. 

Some of our thinking is evolutionary and from a world very different than ours. We should not allow our behavior to be influenced by a weakly controlled system appropriate for a long ago time. Some of our thinking is influenced by disembodied voices from our past: parents, teachers, coaches, friends, enemies, and relatives, all of whom are imperfect, fallible and may not have had very good insight into our true self. What people say to us is often a reflection of who they are and is not any reflection on us. These voices are from people who did not have accurate insight into who we are. Our minds are private and unique and represent our evolutionary experiences but also our singular, individual experiences. To stay peaceful, we have to remain mindful to use the pause between a thought that arises and our response to that thought. Our lives become happier and more peaceful when we pause to examine a thought and decide whether it irepresents our current values.