Do You Want a Rich Life?

You are so conditioned to just wake up and start thinking the thoughts that create your ongoing sense of identity that you cannot recognize that the bars that hold you in are made of those very thoughts. Freedom exists every moment through the ability to choose your thoughts. That’s what actors and amnesiacs do, the former by choice and the latter by accident.

It doesn’t matter what you’re thinking right now—it could be absolutely anything—and you will still have complete control over what your next thought will be. There is no “momentum” in your brain. Your thoughts change the instant you ask them to. If you say “no” to that idea, that just proves my point because you’re using your thoughts to debate with me—or in other words, you had to choose which thoughts were appropriate for your argument.

Most of us run on autopilot. We feel like we’re following a narrative when in actuality we’re creating it. It just feels like we’re following it because we keep making the same choices, which in turn causes the landscape to look like a pattern when in reality it’s wide open. And so we just keep peddling our agonizing or frustrating or sad or angry or betrayed narrative until it’s known as our personality.

And of course we get the feelings that are associated with our thinking. But then we turn around and blame that pain on the people that we put into our internal stories, rather than blaming ourselves for going and creating such specific expectations of them. So it doesn’t matter if you feel they’re “true stories” or not. All that matters is that they are stories you focus your consciousness on. Because you will certainly feel the result of whatever thoughts your consciousness is focused on.

Take greater ownership over your narrative. Get conscious of your creation of it. Know that your life experience is not what happens around you, it is what you think about what happens around you. So start noticing your judgments of situations as good or bad, or right or wrong. Become aware that those are just personal judgments and those are only based on the comparison between what Is versus what you expected via your thinking.

Stop arguing with the world over what it’s provided to you. Instead, look upon the offering with gleeful anticipation of opening up the next chapter of your own existence. Maybe it’ll be sexy or funny or enlightening, or maybe it will be frightening, dangerous and painful. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you stay as conscious of your choice of judgments as possible. Because then you always stay in touch with your ability to see the value in any situation. And that can’t help but lead to a really rich life.

Have a wonderful day.

peace and love, s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

Scott McPherson

I help people achieve better mental health by teaching them about reality.