You Are What You Think

How much time do you spend thinking about your thinking? If you’re like most people, probably not much time at all. After all, thoughts just come and go like the wind, right? How much impact can they really have? As it turns out, they can have a lot of impact. In very real ways, you are what you think.

This is not a new idea. The ancient Stoics endorsed a version of this idea. They proposed that the world is full of things beyond our control, including other people, and that the only thing we can control is ourselves. Specifically, we can control our thoughts and feelings. By embracing wisdom, moderation and self-control, we can develop a balanced mind and achieve happiness. Conversely, the absence of this balanced mind leads to self-destructive behaviors. Imagine someone you’ve known with anger problems. Odds are good you saw them make self-destructive choices out of anger that undermined their happiness.

Our thoughts act like a lens that only lets in certain types of information or bends the information in particular ways. Consider pessimists. Pessimism is the lens through which they interpret the world. That lens only lets them see the negative or it bends what they see to appear negative. Benevolent acts become condescension. Cheerfulness becomes naivety. Their thoughts make the world an unhappy place, no matter what. What is unfortunate is that most pessimists believe that the world actually is negative, rather than realizing that their own thoughts have simply made them negative. If they were to change the lens, they could change themselves.

Napoleon Hill took it a step further. He opened his classic, business text, Think and Grow Rich, with the following line:

“TRULY, ‘thoughts are things,’ and powerful things at that…”

Consider the implications of that. How casually would we treat thoughts, if we approached them as Napoleon Hill suggests? What if we treated them as things we were going to buy? Most people don’t want to own junk. So why would we buy or tolerate junk thoughts? It seems more likely that people would work to monitor their thoughts and to encourage quality thoughts that support them, rather than junk thoughts that bring them down. This is the line of thought pursued by James Allen, arguably the godfather of modern self-help, in his famous text, As A Man Thinketh.

Allen holds that the contents of our thoughts are intimately connected not only with our mental and emotional well-being, as the Stoics thought, but also with our material circumstances, as Hill contends. In essence, he offers that if our thoughts are dominated by the negative, negative consequences will manifest in our lives. Psychologists call this a self-fulfilling prophesy. Think of the person convinced that they will fail a test and goes on to fail the test. By embracing the idea of their inability to pass the test, it becomes a reality. If we fill our minds with productive ideas, on the other hand, we are much more likely to productive results in our lives.

In order for us to shape our lives into something positive and meaningful, we must first take responsibility for the thoughts that drive our lives. By embracing those thoughts that empower, encourage and motivate us, we become empowered, encouraged and motivated. We can become the captains of our souls, rather then passengers in lives defined by thoughts we do not own.

Growing up with a father as a mechanic, William J. Lee has always loved and now actively follows the automobile industry. In particular he focuses on Toyota dealers and Toyota dealerships.