The mind is the first and foremost front in the war of getting what you want.
Many rightly link thoughts to words, words to actions, actions to habit, habit to character, and character to outcomes. And many rightly say change what you can and tolerate or transmute what you can’t.
We exercise utmost control in our thoughts, as nowhere else, and can there gird ourselves against external struggle and adversity, and make our minds the seedbed of serenity and success. Yet more often than not the mental palace is a house divide unto it self: it teems with fear and self-doubt, and small challenges and disappointments create turmoil.
One way to change your thoughts is to strive to cast adversity as opportunity. Take traffic. Traffic sucks. Traffic delays, disturbs, wastes, encroaches on our arrow-focused, little efforts. Traffic makes us feel like a pawn, one among multitudes of pawns. Where are all these drones, ourselves included, off to anyway? Traffic incites self-deprecating and second-guessing, causes us to regret snoozing, shower languishing, or coffee lingering, because if only we'd arisen at cockscrow, we'd damn well be there by now! Traffic sucks you from positive and productive thinking into a pit of distraction, frustration, anxiety despair.
While we may avoid traffic, once we're in traffic, it's too late. All we can manage is our mental response. There, we are master. Each time you resist the suck, you further fortify your mental palace into a mental fortress.
With right awareness, you can convert mistakes and failure into challenge and success. The character Somni-456 talks about this in David Mitchell's time-and-space-spanning novel Cloud Atlas. (For context, a sony is a computer. Go is a strategic game like chess.)
Many rightly link thoughts to words, words to actions, actions to habit, habit to character, and character to outcomes. And many rightly say change what you can and tolerate or transmute what you can’t.
We exercise utmost control in our thoughts, as nowhere else, and can there gird ourselves against external struggle and adversity, and make our minds the seedbed of serenity and success. Yet more often than not the mental palace is a house divide unto it self: it teems with fear and self-doubt, and small challenges and disappointments create turmoil.
One way to change your thoughts is to strive to cast adversity as opportunity. Take traffic. Traffic sucks. Traffic delays, disturbs, wastes, encroaches on our arrow-focused, little efforts. Traffic makes us feel like a pawn, one among multitudes of pawns. Where are all these drones, ourselves included, off to anyway? Traffic incites self-deprecating and second-guessing, causes us to regret snoozing, shower languishing, or coffee lingering, because if only we'd arisen at cockscrow, we'd damn well be there by now! Traffic sucks you from positive and productive thinking into a pit of distraction, frustration, anxiety despair.
While we may avoid traffic, once we're in traffic, it's too late. All we can manage is our mental response. There, we are master. Each time you resist the suck, you further fortify your mental palace into a mental fortress.
With right awareness, you can convert mistakes and failure into challenge and success. The character Somni-456 talks about this in David Mitchell's time-and-space-spanning novel Cloud Atlas. (For context, a sony is a computer. Go is a strategic game like chess.)
Well, Hae-Joo probed, what did I do to relax?Cast adversity as opportunity to create solace inside from inside, and you will find it in pursuits outside.
I play Go against my sony, I said.
“To relax?” he responded, incredulous. “Who wins, you or the sony?”
The sony, I answered, or how would I ever improve?
So winners, Hae-Joo proposed, are the real losers because they learn nothing? What, then, are losers? Winners?
I said, If losers can exploit what their adversaries teach them, yes, losers can become winners in the long term.
