Give Some Thought To Your Thoughts
A few days ago, while surfing on YouTube, I came across a video titled 'The Toxic World Of Self-help’. The title grabbed my attention; so I clicked and watched the whole video. Now, before I talk any further about the video, I want you to know that the views expressed in it were the personal opinions of the video owner. Now let’s dive in.
In the video, the Youtuber shares his experience of how he discovered an insanely popular book by Dale Carnegie named ' How To Win Friends And Influence People,’ and how he became obsessed with the self-help genre after reading this book.
He says that after finishing the last page of the book, he had a surge of dopamine release; that at first everything seemed to be working perfectly — the affirmation, the positive thinking exercise, the visualization technique; but gradually it dawned on him that most of his time is being spent in reading these books or other exercises tied up to them, and he wasn’t making any progress whatsoever.
He goes on to say that the self-help industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, and people involved in it are making a fortune out of our misery; that we are only profitable to them Unhappy and Dissatisfied.
“How is this related to the title of this post?”, you may ask. I am getting there. Just be a little patient
Well, I don’t agree with the guy on many things he said — especially what he said about the affirmation and positive thinking, yet somehow it stuck in my head– maybe I gave it more attention than was necessary. And today a shocking thing happened: I skipped my morning affirmations! To be completely honest, I restarted doing them about a week ago; but still, I didn’t miss a single day before today.
This made me realize how powerful a thought can be and why we need to Shield our Beliefs from intrusive and malignant thoughts. We should only allow good/positive thoughts to linger in our heads.
Our thoughts aren’t just thought, they are the fragments of the foundation our future is going to build upon. So choose your thoughts judiciously.
Now, how could we shield our Beliefs?
Well… I think everyone knows the answer to that question — Meditation. Too boring….? Do it anyway!
The alternative is to take a pen and pepper and write down your Beliefs. This exercise is to help you make a distinction between a thought and a belief.
Note: this exercise is completely subjective; it may not work for you.
If you have any other ways to do it let me know.
