What is a mind for life?
What is a Mind For Life? How do we think? This is critical to how we live our lives and I believe how much fulfillment we find in life and how much we enjoy our lives.
In the Old Testament the psalmist says as a man thinks in His heart, so is he. This speaks a deep truth that sometimes is hidden from us, namely, we are what and how we think. Now this, to me, is both simple and profound because I think we can all admit that we are what we think and that our thoughts, in certain ways define us.
We have, within our mental concepts, certain beliefs and values about ourselves, the nature of reality, how the world works, what the meaning of life is, and many other things like this. For most of us, these have been handed down to us from our parents, our friends, the people who have influenced our lives, and even culture and society. These values form the basis for how we make decisions and choices in life. We make value judgments. We choose one option among a host of others. Sometimes that choice is based upon logical thinking or reasoned thought processes, but a lot of times, we make those decisions on emotions, on feelings and sometimes for reasons we don’t necessarily understand. Often, we make choices and decisions on autopilot – our brains make them for us, many times subconsciously without our even being aware of what is going on.
And those decisions and choices we make in life have consequences. They have results, in other words. If our choices in life come about because of our thought, emotions, feelings, – sometimes consciously but sometimes subconsciously, and these are based upon faulty or even wrong values, it’s not hard to see why or how so many of the results of those choices and decisions can cause chaos or difficulty.
I’m sure you may know people who make bad decision after bad decision and, even after speaking with them and trying to help them, they still do the same things over and over. I submit to you that these actions, choices, decisions, whatever you want to call them, happen automatically, subconsciously based upon thinking patterns that have been engrained within them, thinking patterns they cannot escape because they are not even aware that these patterns exist.
A fish in water is unaware of the water. This is the same situation. We live a live that is primarily defined by how we think and experience the world around us and for much of it, we are unaware of what is going on in the background.
My goal here, is to draw your attention to how this is taking place in your life and to help re-establish intentional values and set up healthy thought processes so that your outcomes in life are better for you. Our outcomes (the results and consequences of our choices) are determined by the ways in which we think – which are based consciously and subconsciously upon our values and beliefs.
A favorite theologian of mind said this “Unless you’ve taken steps to change, the way you experience yourself and the world was mostly chosen for you, not by you.” It’s time you take the steps, it’s time you were proactive about choosing how you will experience yourself and how you will experience the world. It’s time you take control of your thought life, first by becoming aware of the fact that for the most part, this aspect remains hidden from us, second by coming to an understanding of how this works, and third by developing the skills necessary to recognize and discern the good from the bad.
I’m excited about it, and I hope you are as well. I hope you’ll join us for this journey and I hope your life will be better, that you will grow and that you will better develop a mind for life. You can join us on the blog at www.mindforlife.org. Thanks and have a great day!