To build our mind we have to learn to respond rather than react. That requires thinking. To think is an act of choice. Reason and logic do not work automatically, critical thinking is not an instinctive process. The function of your digestion tract, lungs, or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any moment and in any issue of your life, you are free to think or to evade the effort that thinking requires.
When we evade that effort we become mentally weak and ruled by our emotions. You hear it all the time. “Follow your heart”. What does that really mean? We are mind, will, AND emotion, not emotion alone. Follow your heart usually means follow your feelings or emotions and leaves out the mind and the will which are conscious acts. Men and women must obtain their knowledge and choose their actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force them to perform. We have the power to act as our own destroyer, or, as the builder of ourselves. The greatest way we do this is by choosing what we consume.
We are consumption machines. We consume food, water, material goods, everything. The biggest thing we consume outside of air is probably content. We think about the quality of the air we consume, but we often don’t consider the quality of the content we consume. Just think of lyrics in a song. Really, stop and think about what’s being said. Do you want to live that way? Or the people you allow to give you advice, do they have the results in life you want in the area they are giving advice in?
To grow and succeed in any area, you must grow and succeed in the mind first. Change the way you think. To do that, change the content you consume and the influencers in your life. Are you selective about who and what you allow to influence your thoughts? Are you even aware of who and what influences your thoughts? You control the microphone speaking into your mind either on purpose or on accident. Decide on playing the station that builds the thoughts you want to live out in your life.
