Six Guidelines to Proper Thinking Part 1

In the late 1960’s there was a Hanna-Barbera cartoon called :The Adventures of Gulliver”. It is of course based on the classic Jonathan Swift novel, “Gulliver’s Travels. One of the featured characters was named “Glum”. And boy, did he ever live up to his name. His catchphrase was “we’ll never make it”. No matter the situation or circumstances, he saw it as hopeless and impossible to overcome. He was a cacophony of negativity.

Positive thoughts can energize and empower not only us, but those around us. On the other hand, negative thoughts can drain and discourage us from even trying.

(https://thebestbrainpossible.com/negative-thinking-depression-mind/)

How we think is so very important to our well being. Negative thoughts can produce not a malaise but a cycle of depression. They can increase stress levels. This stress in turn can lead to hormonal imbalances and damage the immune system. Over time, these habitual negative thoughts can “wear a groove” in our thought patterns. In other words the neurons and synapses in our brain can become wired to automatically think negatively. This impairs our brain’s ability to create happy hormones. Happy hormones include dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins

Let me suggest six ways we can improve our thought life.

Six Guidelines to Proper Thinking:

1. Things that are true. In our current society, we have lost the notion that truth is objective. We have divorced the concept from any aspect of reality. Sadly, what we determine to be ”true” is exclusively tied to how we feel about a thing. We erroneously believe that if we feel something strongly enough, it must be true. This is regardless of any empirical data contrariwise. In Western society we have been conditioned to see everything through race and filter everything through our emotions. This has been to the degradation of the individual, the family and society at large. If we want to improve our thought life, we must start with things that are true. Truth must become the bedrock of our thought processes.

2. Things that are honest or noble. Noble means to have fine personal qualities or high moral principles. The Declaration of Independence speaks of the pursuit of happiness. What is being conveyed isn’t that we are to pursue our fetishes, cravings or lusts. Happiness, that is to say contentment, is to found in the things that makes one a better person in character. I would further continue that it isn’t even in the obtaining; it is in the striving to be better. The journey starts with meditating on those things. I cannot tell you how much time I personally have wasted on thinking about things that that were deleterious to my well-being. They simply were not worth thinking about.

Stay Tuned for Part 2

Questions to Reflect On:

• What are some of the thoughts that you constantly rehearse about yourself?
• Are they uplifting and encouraging?