One of the most powerful and liberating things a person can do, is accept responsibility for what they choose to focus on and how they choose to respond to outside influences.
For example:
- When that bad driver, drives way too close to the rear of your car, he’s doing exactly what bad drivers are supposed to do. To expect anything else from him is naive, at best. It’s pointless to allow him to make you feel angry.
- When you hold the door open for someone and they fail to acknowledge you, they are either daydreaming or being ignorant. Ignorant people act ignorant, it’s what they do. Its pointless to allow their ignorance to make you feel frustrated.
- When someone says something negative about you on a social networking site, they are showing themselves to be small minded. That’s exactly what small minded people are supposed to do. Find what they say curious, see if there’s a lesson there, but it’s pointless to allow their venom to make you feel upset.
Controlling your thoughts
There are very few things in life, over which we have complete control. Thankfully, our mental focus is one of them. The reason this is so valuable, is that the way we feel is governed by what we focus on. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to learn how to consciously direct our focus, so that it works for us and not against us.
We can either go through life allowing our mental state to be randomly directed by outside influences, or we can choose to deliberately focus and process information, in a way that supports us.
Thankfully, the choice is always ours.
Photo: Tool Stop