Your thoughts are powerful. Your mental thoughts create your physical realities. There are many books written on this subject. One of the earliest books ever written on this subject was by the mysterious man named James Allen. His inspirational classic, ‘As a man Thinketh’, has influenced millions of people all around the world.
James Allen believed in the power of thought to bring fame, fortune and happiness. He wrote, “As being of power, intelligence and love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and has written himself the means of transforming himself into what he wills. Whatever a man achieves or fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts.”
Dr. Denis Waitely, America’s most distinguished motivational speaker and teacher said, “Poverty is untested potential, resulting from self-imposed limitations.”
Dr. William James once stated, “Man can change his attitude by changing what he thinks about.” Yes, we are the sum total of all our thoughts.
It is important that we carefully consider what we think about. Select good, clean, powerful and rich thoughts before you put them into your head.
Every computer programmer knows the basic fact about computers. When someone keys in the wrong information or wrong data, then automatically the wrong information will be shown on the monitor when you try to retrieve it. It could be simply stated as, ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’.
Our brains functions like a computer as well. When good thoughts are stored, then good things shall emerge when you need them. Similarly, if you were to put in evil thoughts, then unrighteousness will soon dominate and control you. Realizing that we reflect in our behavior what we keep in our mind, we should use this mental picture as the opportunity to acquire a new-self and to re-evaluate our values.
If you don’t like what you see in the mirror every morning – Yourself, don’t worry. You are not stuck with you. You can change yourself by changing your thoughts and attitude.
There are two kinds of mental attitude: Positive and Negative. The positive individual is always very open to ideas; he is helpful, courteous and always willing to listen. Whereas the negative individual is narrow-minded, very greedy, impolite and always overconfident. Zig Ziglar said, “We call such people conceited – it is a disease that makes everybody sick except the one who has got it.”
Why are there so many negative people? Well, one thing is for sure – they were not born with it. They pick it up along the way. You see we live in a negative world. Just pick up any major newspaper, be it in any language. At least 80 percent of the paper is covered with negative news. Now how do you classify negative news? They cover accidents, deaths, arrests, fire, floods, rapes and murders – the list is endless. The newspaper will go into details, sometimes, gory details and we readers pick up such information and store it in our minds. It will always be there! You may have witnessed the following incident. Two guys or gals read the same newspaper in the office and happen to focus their attention on a certain negative news item. Not only will they mentally register it but will also talk about it for the next few hours, and sometimes, continue to harp on it over the next day. What a way to contaminate the mind!
You may ask, “Does reading newspaper contaminate the mind?” Well, there is nothing wrong to keep yourself informed about your surroundings. The newspaper is doing a splendid job. Reporters go out in the sun and rain before and after office hours just to get up-to-date news so that you can read it the next morning. Yes, they are doing a splendid job, there’s no doubt about it. What I really mean is that you can read, but don’t dwell on it. You must be able to discard the garbage and retain that information that is good and clean.
It is always good to be positive. But there are circumstances where positive thinking does not help. And we must be able to differentiate and judge for ourselves. Moderation is the key here. Always realistically judge a situation and react accordingly.
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