On The Sunny Side Of The Street

Writing is very important. You release your thoughts in your writing, and your thoughts are very vulnerable things to reveal...they're uniquely you, and although other people may share things that pop into your brain as well, nobody else knows what you are thinking but you. Thoughts are things; you can't see them but they're just as powerful as anything tangible. What you repeatedly think, you come to believe, your beliefs become your values, and these are essential to you.

Remember, when you're going through your busy, or not-so busy day, how important it is to think before you speak. As Craig Ferguson said, "Does this need to be said?" Words can cut figuratively speaking and hurt just as badly as a cut from a knife. "Sticks and stones can break bones, but words can break hearts." (Tim Minchin) So just as you're careful (hopefully) with what you say, you also need to be mindful of what you think. I've heard that it's something like 50,000 thoughts, on average, come through the mind daily. Can you imagine how many of those are unwanted thoughts, worries, negativity? We all have thoughts like these, some people more than others. Me, myself, I'm a worrier. You can source it to my Virgo nature, which are known to be nervous worrywarts. Or, you can trace it back to my childhood, how I was conditioned to worry as a coping method. Any way you slice it, worrying is a bad habit. It supposedly takes 21 days to form a habit. Can you believe, just three weeks?! How quickly, if we could put our minds to it firmly, could we almost abolish worrying? Even dissipation of my worried thought pattern is something I'd be grateful for. With the mindset of "you get back what you put in," "you reap what you sow," and the concept of Karma, we want to be putting as much positivity out into our own worlds, and the world in general, as possible. So not only with the outlook of "think before you speak"...let's try to give more weight to our thinking too. If you had to write down every thought you had, well it'd just be impossible. But if you have any platform of thought-sharing in your life, let's say you also blog or you post updates on twitter, Facebook, tumblr, etc. Read back on what you've written and try to notice a pattern. Are you often complaining? Overlooking the good that happened in your day, focusing on what you don't like about this or that? If you don't already, write in a journal to keep track of your progress in changing your mental processes to focus differently — walk in the sunny side of your mind. There's a way to keep the darkness at bay, and it's a matter of controlling your thoughts. A mastery of oneself is one of the highest achievements. Work on it, don't be hard on yourself if you slip up and find yourself worrying again, just get back on the wagon and say: "This is my brain, and I live in it... It's where I spend the vast majority of my time. It's not perfect, but it's mine." (Tim Minchin again, folks...!)

And always look on the bright side of life!