Consider this:
Debt is made up.
Taxes are made up.
Bankruptcy is made up.
Credit scores are made up.
Jobs are made up.
(Listen to this email here instead of reading.)
You wake up in the morning and open your eyes, and you are lying on a man-made bed, and on top of you is a man-made blanket.
Your head resting on a man-made pillow. You are in your man-made room.
You grab your man-made phone and turn off its man-made alarm.
You head to a man-made shower spitting water from a man-made pipe, and snatch your man-made towel to dry yourself for you to put on your man-made clothes and shoes.
You go to your man-made kitchen and prepare your self-made breakfast.
You brush your teeth with a man-made toothbrush.
Then off you go to your man-made job or school in your man-made vehicle, which is being propelled by a man-made engine.
You go about your work, solving man-made problems, and getting man-made rewards, and man-made pay.
This entire system is a man-made concept.
This “way of life” has become a futuristic modern prison, and we made it.
So now you’re thinking:
Thanks for the instant depression Myke, but how do we fix this?
Well look…
We’re all trying to escape this together.
It’s ongoing, and we all have a different vision of freedom.
We are constantly bombarded by so much nonsense and man-made bullshit that we ‘think’ we need to handle everyday.
And all you can do is take a deep breath.
Yes there are real world “rules” around these things, but you can drop the stories you project onto these fake rules, and start crafting a new relationship with life, your thoughts, and the inevitable problems around you.
Before you call me crazy (i might be), take a moment to consider your thoughts and the power they hold over your life.
In the book “Don’t Believe Everything You Think” by Joseph Nguyen, the author speaks about the root cause of all psychological and emotional suffering and how to end it, and how to ultimately become unaffected by negative thoughts and feelings.
As many of you know, I subscribe to the philosophy of Stoicism, which also aligns with this, so I greatly enjoyed listening to it.
In the book, it makes a very strong distinction between Thoughts and Thinking, hence the chart above.
What Are Thoughts?
Thoughts are natural, and can pop into our minds without any intentional effort. They can be disjointed and lack a clear structure. They can be brief and pass quickly unless we choose to focus on them.
Examples:
• A memory of a childhood event.
• An idea for a new project.
• A worry about an upcoming meeting.
What Is Thinking?
Thinking on the other hand, requires intentional focus and effort. It follows a logical sequence and aims to achieve a specific outcome. Thinking is goal-oriented and directed towards understanding, solving, or creating something specific.
Examples:
• Planning a vacation itinerary.
• Solving a complex math problem.
• Reflecting on a situation or circumstance.
You have thoughts.
You choose to think.
Recognizing the difference between thoughts and thinking can enhance your life to an unexplainable degree.
Practice observing your thoughts without judgment, and notice when you shift into deliberate thinking.
Overthinking almost always involves getting stuck in a loop of repetitive thoughts.
I know that feeling all to well, and Ive been there many times.
It’s a miserable feeling.
By distinguishing between spontaneous thoughts and purposeful thinking, you can break free from this cycle overtime with practice.
So, now let’s revisit the morning routine example I mentioned earlier, but with a new frame of thinking.
Consider this instead:
Everything that is made in this world was inspired by something that has already been created.
We can say that things are made by humans from already available resources.
In reality, there is not a single thing on this planet that is created by human.
As humans we can only find various things that already exist, assemble them, and “make” something new.
Creation however, is creating something from nothing.
And humorously enough, the only thing we can actually truly create from nothing, is our own thoughts.
And this is great news, because this means we can consciously choose to think about our thoughts, or we can choose to let them go.
Everything we desire and strive for in life likely did not exist in the past and may not exist in the future, so why do we bother ruminating over it?
People base success upon something as made-up as money.
I started this year over $247,000 in debt, which you can learn more about here.
It doesn’t matter. It has no impact on anything. It’s a made up number.
Is someone going to kill me over it?
Maybe, but unlikely.
So other than that, I don’t care.
I still have a long way to go to solve it.
And yes, I have thoughts about it.
But I don’t think about it.
Most of us are running after materials.
Materials which did not exist 100 years ago, and will not exist 100 years from now.
The light bulb was invented barely over 100 years ago by a human.
The light bulb…
Are you starting to understand?…
That is not a long time ago by any means.
When you’ve lost a lot, you realize life is not about “things”.
The 3 largest assets we have in life were not created by humans.
They are intrinsically available to all of us:
1 – Health and the ability to breathe, think, and feel.
2 – Love which binds us together through harmony and understanding.
3 – Knowledge and curiosity to learn, improve, and find fulfillment.
By embracing and feeling gratitude towards these, which we all have access to, we can live in the moment and find true freedom.
Notice how “thinking” is not on this list?
That’s because it does not serve us.
In fact it does the opposite.
Your thinking is the root cause of all of your suffering.
So this has been a long winded way of saying – “stop thinking so much damnit.”
Now, the goal is not to eliminate negative thoughts entirely — that’s impossible…
Negativity is a natural part of being human.
Instead, aim to manage and challenge our thoughts, by creating space for a more positive perspective.
Steps to Implement:
• Identify a negative thought you often have.
• Ask yourself: Is this thought based on facts or assumptions?
• Replace the negative thought with a more balanced and realistic one.
Example:
• Negative Thought: “I always mess things up.”
• Balanced Thought: “Sometimes I make mistakes, but I also succeed often and I learn from these mistakes.”
One of the first steps along The Self Reliant Path, is gaining emotional intelligence and becoming fluid in your thinking.
Have a thought.
Let it go.
Move along.
Repeat.
That is life.
There is no point thinking about past mistakes, or obsessing over future ‘what-ifs’.
I will leave you with my favorite passage from Joseph’s book:
“If we know that we can only ever feel what we are thinking, then we know that we can change our feelings by changing our thinking.
Thus, we can change our experience of life by knowing that it comes from our own thinking.
And if that is true, then we are ever only one thought away from experiencing something different and transforming our entire lives at any moment — through a state of not thinking at all.
In short, the moment we stop thinking is when our happiness begins.”
You can get your own copy of the book here: “Don’t Believe Everything You Think” by Joseph Nguyen
