The Law of Thinking
Everybody thinks, right? Well maybe not, at least not most of the time. Thinking is a mental function governed by a law that many are not aware of nor, interestingly, think about!
That may sound like a strange thing to say, because you in all probability agree with the phrase that I opened this article with, which is "Everybody thinks, right?" The rather alarming truth is that "everybody" is not really the right word to use there, because most people are not engaged in true "thinking" most of the time!
What is Thinking?
To explain this almost unbelievable line of discussion, I better explain what I mean by the word "thinking." We all have a mind that is capable of doing many things with thought being one of our six higher, cognitive mental faculties, all of which are:
- Reason (thought)
- Memory
- Perception
- Will
- Intuition
- Imagination
Our reasoning faculty is the part of the mind that gives us the ability to engage in deep, creative thought and is one of the main factors that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. All animals primarily act on instinct, whereas humans have the capacity to override instinct and think about what they should do in any given situation.
When we are actively engaged in true, meaningful thinking, we are not being influenced by what is going on in our immediate world or external stimuli. And this is where most people fail to make the distinction between true thinking and merely having our minds filled with whatever is going on around us.
Processing Information
We mistakenly believe we are thinking when we our minds are just being kept busy by all that external noise (images, sounds, smells, tastes, physical touch). We allow the television or radio to fill our heads with whatever they are broadcasting. We become engrossed in what we are reading in the newspaper or in a conversation with another or several other people.
All the time we are being kept busy with external stimuli, our reasoning faculty goes dormant so we can process all that external information in place of what we should be doing. We literally stop thinking for ourselves and allow the world to guide and control our minds with whatever is being put I there!
It is only when we can shut out the external noise by going somewhere quiet, away from other people, the TV the radio and the world in general and consciously quieten our minds that we can at last begin to think deeply and creatively. We can only do that when our minds are completely unburdened by having to process all the information, figure out solutions to problems or worry about anything at all.
Ask yourself truthfully, how often do actually shut out the outside world and engage in that kind of thought?
What Can True Thought Achieve?
When we can take over the job of guiding our thoughts to where we actually want them to go, which is something we all have the ability to do (even though almost all of the population doesn't do it), we can create a better environment for ourselves and those that are close to us. There is an age-old truth that we should be very careful to remember, which is:
"We become what we think about."
What do you think about? If you're just allowing the world at large to run your thoughts for you, you're never going to make any meaningful improvements in your life. What follows is a statement of unparalleled importance:
To take control of your life you must take control of your thoughts.
You have the capability to think about whatever you want to and by doing so you can have just about anything you want out of life. So why would you allow yourself to miss out on the life you could have by allowing your thoughts to be guided by the TV, other people's opinions, the newspapers, the radio etc?
Creative Thought
You can choose to block all that unwanted noise out and start using your mind for what it was designed for. That is to create ideas and plans for a much better life which you appropriate through your capacity for creative thought!
If you look at the tiny minority of truly successful people in comparison to the vast masses who do not enjoy admirable success in their lives and the one thing that sets them apart is that the successful ones use their minds to create their success while everybody else don't know how to use their minds to their advantage.
The common opinion about successful people (by those that are not successful) is that they must have become that way though getting a lucky break or being helped by other successful people or by some kind of evil trickery and stepping on those below them on the ladder to success. For the vast majority of successful people, none of that is actually true.
While there are some that inherited their wealth and position, for the most part people that do not earn their success soon squander what they have. You see it all the time, where the wealth that a person has spent their lives attaining and prospering from is handed down to their children who manage to squander is in very short time and end up as worthless drunks or drug addicts on the slippery slope to oblivion.
To appreciate success in any area of life, one has to earn it. It is most easily earned (and kept) by putting to use the mental faculty of reasoning thought to create the necessary innovative ideas or plans that bring it about.
The only way to do that is to be in tune with the deepest, innermost thought processes that come from creating thinking that can only come when the mind is not bombarded with external noise. You can do that by setting aside some "me time" in order to meditate or relax and quieten your mind to allow creative ideas to percolate through.
Practice Makes Perfect
It takes practice to achieve this ability, but everyone can do it if they choose to do it. For most people, the very idea of having to work at something soon loses its appeal and they just go back to their TV sets and newspapers and letting the world control their lives because it's good enough for them.
If a mediocre, lacklustre life is good enough for you, then that's fine. You don't need to do anything you're not already doing to stay where you are!
But if you are unsatisfied with the way your life is right now and you want to change it for the better, you need to be prepared to put in the work to reap the rewards. That means starting right now to learn how to control your thoughts and direct them to create your prosperity, happiness, health or whatever it is you want to improve upon.
Will you choose to embrace this "law" and harness the power of your own thinking capacity to create new ideas and innovations that will propel your life to the place you want it to be?
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