Reality Check

Normally I am the preacher of positive thinking. My wife will attest to the fact that I always say that you have to have control over your mind, or you have control over nothing. I stand by that, I believe that if you have control over your thoughts you will have control over a large part of what happens in your life. Everything we do comes from the mind, feelings, actions, ideas, and words. It only makes since that if you control the one part of you that controls everything you do and feel, then and only then do you have control over your life.

That being said, I also believe that things happen to had and come our way that we have no control over. We have all experienced hardships in life. You introduce me to one person who has never experience pain or suffering of any kind, I will doubt that person to even be alive. Those that believe they have it all figured out or that are on top of the world, will soon understand what I mean by pain and suffering. As humans we will continue to ride the roller coaster of life. We will go up and we will go down, we will twist and turn through life, and I personally would have it no other way.

Hardships in my life have made me who I am today and will continue to make me who I am going to be. I do not regret or wish to erase a single hardship, because I am a stronger and wiser person because of them. It is my experiences with hardship that has caused me to believe in positive thinking and power over ones mind. We are who we are by what we have experienced and how we have allowed those experiences to affect us. When hardships come we are left with choices to make on how we allow our mind to process and use them. It all comes down on how we allow our thoughts, feelings, and actions to change by what we have experienced.

This is shown even through how we see other peoples hardships. Since being laid off at the end of January, I have heard many peoples thoughts and advice since then. Each one of the being different because of the person who is sharing them. A person who is experienced with losing a job and having to start all over will have different advice and thought, then the person who has never experienced. For example, a person who has experienced it will provide words of encouragement through point out that persons strength and drive, because they know that a person who has lost their job will begin to doubt their own worth and ability. However, a person who has not experienced it will job start to advising the person how to spend money, apply for jobs, or even point out their own hardships or others. Although their intentions are good, and it may help in some cases or at some point in time, the person experiencing the hardship does not need that, because that is not how their mind is processing it at the time.

How we process things and allow things to affect us changes who we are, even when it comes to the things we can not control. It is our mind and we have the power over it.