Think Straight: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

by Darius Foroux

At any rate, I will assume for the present — until next year — that it is no illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will."

“You become what you think about all day long.”

But I don’t want to be too dramatic about my situation.

We prefer to entertain the same thoughts because they give us a sense of familiarity. We’ve learned that novelty is a scary thing—so we do everything to avoid it. We’re creatures of habit who prefer relaxing our mind instead of straining it.

“I know one thing: That I know nothing,” is what Socrates famously told the

“I think, therefore I am.”

Thoughts should serve a useful purpose. If they don’t, they’re useless. That’s straight thinking.

The quality of our thoughts determines the quality of our lives. And our decisions are a result of our thoughts.

A heuristic is a strategy we derive from previous experience with a similar problem. One heuristic that everyone knows is “trial and error,” a strategy for finding answers to problems we face.

Making decisions based on heuristic techniques might ease the cognitive load, but they are far from practical.

Do what works for you.

Only think about things you can control. That automatically eliminates about 99% of your thoughts because there’s very little you control in life. Only focus on what you control.

platitudes.

“The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”