Immersed as we are in the familiar routines of ordinary
life, it is easy for us to lose the sense of wonder that we had as children. Each fresh morning is a new birth filled with
bright possibilities.
I ask myself, will I make my day a rerun of my
yesterdays? Or, will I see, with clean sight,
the chances that are open to me? Will I see the possibilities?
If yesterday was delicious, I might follow a similar path
and set up a version of yesterday that I can enjoy today. But, I don’t need to be locked into a version
of yesterday unless I want to be. I might
have commitments like a job or family ties that seen to lay out the skeleton of
my day but the flesh of it, the tone of it, the flavor of it, comes out of my
attitudes and expectations. I get to
choose those.
It’s all about choice and choice is about thoughts. One important thing about thoughts is that I
can change them. They are more or less
under my control. I can contradict a
bad-feeling thought by internally changing the subject or I can reward a
good-feeling thought by paying attention to it and approving of it. I need to be noticing what I’m feeling/thinking
to be able to do this. The key is
attention. I need to be focused. That means that I need to be awake to my
feelings in the moment.
It is true that one thought leads to another. It is also true that any thought will lead to
another that is like itself. I can enjoy
an ascending series of good-feeling thoughts or a descending cascade of
miseries depending on my starting thought and my reaction to it. That’s my choice.
Every moment can be a new start.
The best place to start is with gratitude. If I begin my fresh new moment by saying and
feeling “thank you” for good things in my life, I will kick off a positive
chain reaction. This attention to good
things will allow me to notice other good-feeling opportunities that I can act
on to keep my energy flowing in the right direction.
The better it gets, the better it can get. The opposite is also true.
We are all chain-thinkers.
We run on habit. If we take the
trouble to redirect our thoughts toward good-feeling ones enough times, this
pattern will become our habit.
While our best alternative is to be alert, alive and fully
present in every moment, the habit of choosing good-feeling thoughts is a
pretty good second choice.
