So just what am I supposed to do? If my life is so confined by what I can't control and since nearly everything is not under my power to decide anyway... Why don't I just drift through life? It's not like my choices can make a difference anyway...
WRONG!
If people start thinking in this way, it means that they have started to confine themselves and bind their free will with self-made chains. We have to admit that there are things that we cannot control, and those things can't be helped. But never forget that we always have our choices. Instead of focusing on the things we cannot control. We should pay more attention on the things we can.
We can control the way we think. Something which separates humans from animals is the ability to think and reason beyond emotion. Instead of reacting to the situations in life with hostility, apprehension or, indeed, reacting at all, we should instead be directing the course of our lives.
I know it's a little deep, let me give an analogy: You slapped a person. If that person is someone who reacts, he/she would probably slap you back, or cry, or get angry. But if that person is someone who directs, then he/she would consider the implications of reacting, such as the consequences, or the sequence of events leading up to the slap, maybe you had a valid reason for slapping him/her, maybe reacting based on emotion would destroy what relationship the both of you have left. Bearing this in mind, that person would choose to direct their emotions and effort to try to settle the issue in the best way possible, refusing to give in to their base emotions.
The Bible says that,"He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but he who walks wisely will be delivered."(Proverbs 28:26) The world tells us to "Follow your heart!" or "Trust in your feelings!". And just because it sounds noble and romantic many people do choose to follow it. The problem is that following your heart usually means chasing after whatever feels right at the moment whether or not it's actually right. It means throwing caution and conscience to the wind and pursuing your latest desires and whims regardless of what good logic and counsel are saying.
Following this line of thought, to decide to put more weight in what your heart as compared to your head is foolish. Emotions often tell us what we truly desire at the moment, and they can be a useful guide for good decisions. But they must first be tempered by experience and, whenever the chance arises, time to use our brains to analyse and think things through in their entirety.
We are not animals that live our lives based on instinct and emotion alone. We are humans that have the ability to direct the course of our lives. We may make good decisions and just as often make bad ones, but no matter what our choices are, we are the ones who decide it, and those decisions are what's within our circle of control.
We may not be able to control what happens to us, but we can control our attitude towards it. And to a greater extent, we always can alter things that are even outside our circle of control.
Take family for example, we may not be able to control what kind of family we're born into, but we can control the way we build our relationship with our family.
Another example would be the weather, we can't control when it rains or shines, but we can control whether or not we'll get wet or stay dry by choosing to bring an umbrella out.
We can't control everything, but we can influence it in some way or another. The key is to have the right attitude to deal with the things we can control, instead of brooding on the things we can't. Also, attitude comes from conscious knowledge which comes from the mind, not the heart.
The heart can teach us many things, but it cannot and should not teach us how to live our lives. The only exception to this is when your heart finds something bigger than itself, something worth dying for. That's when the heart can pursue it with all it's determination and hope.
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Change your thoughts and you change your world.
Labels: Discussion, random stuff