However, James doesn’t say we can control our consciousness. When we sit down and observe our thoughts for a few minutes, we will notice that a lot of things flow through our mind. The thoughts are just “there.” Nothing we can change about that. But since we have free will, we can decide which thoughts we focus on. Hence, we can influence the direction of consciousness. This realization is critical to the way we live. It’s the difference between “I can’t help but feel this way” and “I feel this way because I decided to feel this way.”
