photo credit: Aaron Springston
"Human thought is actually the steering mechanism of human experience." This statement I read recently can be interpreted in different ways, but I see how it has been demonstrated in my own life. Decades ago, I felt like a victim of life's circumstances. Of the top five stress-producing situations in life, I constantly was in the midst of two or three of them. It was a never-ending drama, with sadness which I tried to quelch by staying stoned all the time. It took years of concentrated effort to calm my thoughts and erase my addictions, but the reward has been happiness. It's easy to slip back into ways of thinking which bring distress -- such as being upset over political happenings, fear of disease, worry about children and loved ones. While I have not made a New Year's resolution to stop thinking this way, I have vowed to be thankful and to be aware of where my thought is steering me. I have preached to others the importance of our first thoughts upon waking and our last mental images before going to sleep. I've been lax in the good habits which became mine through practice. No matter what my waking thought is tomorrow morning, I want to turn it into this daily prayer which was given to us by Mary Baker Eddy: "'Thy kingdom come:' let the reign of divine Life, Truth, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin [erroneous thoughts of separation]; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!"
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