Your mind is like a piece of land planted with many different kinds of seeds: seeds of joy, peace, mindfulness, understanding, and love; seeds of craving, anger, fear, hate, and forgetfulness. These wholesome and unwholesome seeds are always there, sleeping in the soil of your mind. The quality of your life depends on the seeds you water.
If you plant tomato seeds in your gardens, tomatoes will grow. Just so, if you water a seed of peace in your mind, peace will grow. When the seeds of happiness in you are watered, you will become happy. When the seed of anger in you is watered, you will become angry. The seeds that are watered frequently are those that will grow strong.
Thinking about your thoughts might seem like a double bind. We have thoughts… all day long, up to 70,000 of them. How much time do you spend thinking about your thoughts? Do you just let them happen to you or are you deliberate in what you think?
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.
Marcus Aurelias
When we inquire as to what people want, eventually the answer is ‘to be happy’. Therefore, if we believe that our happiness of our life does depend on the quality of our thoughts… then we do need as the Emperor says: ‘To guard accordingly’. Let’s state that in the positive though. Instead of a defensive guarding, let’s get on the front foot and take an active role in observing and then choosing our thoughts.
Our thoughts are worth examining for clues and patterns but not endlessly. Removing interference in our thought patterns brings clarity and focus. Our thoughts aren’t wrong per se they are just thoughts. It’s the meaning that we attach to them that then drives our responses and our actions. When your response and action is not what you want e.g. you feel unhappy or your response is frustration or anger it’s helpful to observe your thoughts. Thoughts come and go. The more aware we are of them the better. We just don’t need to act on every one of them.
When you review the key areas of your life such as work, relationships, health, wealth, and appearance what are your thoughts about each. Are your thoughts of a high quality or could they do with an upgrade? How would you rate the quality of your thoughts? What would you like them to be? Can you just let the thoughts that you don’t need, just float away?
Such a simple declaration about the relationship between our happiness and thoughts has us thinking deeply. We can observe the thoughts that we are having and then choose again if we need to. Making a commitment to choose thoughts that are of a good quality is essential if you want to be happy. Be discerning about the quality of thoughts you let run through your precious mind every day. No-one else is responsible for our happiness. Only ourselves and our thoughts.
The key to happiness is to think about all that you must be grateful for in your life. So, lastly, I want to convey that “Have a positive thought in your mind and create a blessed and happy life for yourself”.
What’s going on with your thinking? Let me know in the comments box below. I would love to hear from you.
Kenrick Vaz 