Thoughts First, Last and Always

You’re unique just like everyone else. There has never been, nor ever be, anyone quite like us. It is you, and the character you create, that determines how your life goes. Not everyone is the same; neither are their thoughts and it is thinking, and how you feel about what you think, that makes all the difference. After a long day, the only things you’re left with are your thoughts.

Thoughts are everything because they manifest into feelings. Thoughts visit temporarily, but feelings linger indefinitely. A feeling is what is left over from the presence of a thought. Even after a thought leaves our mind, you are left to decipher its byproducts. Thinking always precedes feelings, even if we’re not aware of it, and it is these feelings that validate our mindset and navigate our perception of reality. Feelings can make us buoyant or submerge us in a life that is neither rewarding nor fulfilling. They determine whether we go with the flow, succeed, and find paths of possibilities, or whether we remain stagnant in our ways and travel the same useless roads. How we think determines how we navigate this life. Sink or swim, the choice resides within us. The remarkable thing about thoughts is that regardless of how powerful they are, we still control them.

We have the power to make every day, every week, and every year a fine one. The ability resides within us and always has. Our experiences in life are determined by what happens inside our mind. The continual voice in our head controls everything in our experience, and we are in command of this voice. Our internal monologue creates images that we identify as thoughts. This is an exclusive human condition. Our ability to think is our greatest strength, as well as, our greatest weakness. It can cause us to succeed or to fail in each and every situation we encounter.

It’s the same with our recollections of the past. The past is only a thought, and it, too, determines how we think and what we believe. Each new encounter breeds a reflection on past experiences. We cannot help but to remember. Like a recipe book, we look for the ingredients used in the past to recreate the familiar, even if we have the motivation to change. We look for similarities and find sameness even if it requires a stretch. Empowering thoughts fill our heads when we view a memory as positive. “I can do it,” we say. “I’ve done it before and I can do it again.”

Disheartening thoughts fill our heads and we search for the similarities in that as well when we view a memory as negative. “Who am I kidding? I can’t do this. I have never been able to do anything like this ever before.” Negative thinking is analogous to throwing in the towel before we get a chance to evaluate the other boxer, while positive thinking is analogous to ado
ing the medal before us step up to the starting line. We can reap the rewards or suffer the consequences before the situation transpires, all inside our head.