Five Ingredients to A Newer Way of Thinking

          This stren identifies the basic component of what is needed to develop thought control, to become your own person.

          Elsewhere, I have identified five components or areas of skill development that contribute to becoming master of our thinking.  The components are:

1. The ingredients [here addressed]
2. The vocabulary
3. Strens, knowledge that strengthens your wisdom
4. The Mental Response Control Panel
5. Values  

          Creating something, be it a cake, a house, or a newer way of thinking, begins with ingredients.  You will require five ingredients to become director and producer of your life’s experience.  You already possess most of these ingredients and/or can readily attain them.  This stren identifies each ingredient and explains what to do to obtain what you lack.  These are the required ingredients to change:

1. Faith, the simple assumption that you can make a difference! 
2. Work
3. Direction
4. Patience
5. Risk-taking

In my study of people, I have observed many who feel good and do good through appropriate use of these five ingredients.  They attain a state of mind that is worthy to emulate. 

          Please also realize what is not required: wealth, good health, unusual intelligence, knowing someone in control, “good” genes, the “right” parents, fate and circumstance.  Too many persons advantaged by these “not required” resources, who have been provided multiple “golden spoons,” are, nevertheless, quite miserable and/or unsuccessful in attaining life’s satisfactions.  Given the choice, it is better to have them than not have them.  Simply recognize they are not required.  They can easily be made excuses for a helpless/hopeless attitude. 

          Recognizing each of these five ingredients to change is practical knowledge that will contribute to your well-being.  Study them, grow them, and benefit by their use.

Faith, the simple belief that your will power can make a difference!

          Humankind is becoming increasingly unique among all living creatures by the degree we exercise free will.  Most behavior among creatures is a re-action to some outside stimulation and/or change in their internal physical state.  Due to the capacity of our brain, our creation of sophisticated symbols to engage in original thinking, and our growing means to collect and disseminate knowledge, we initiate action on the basis of what we call faith, belief in our assumptions.  We are interpretive creatures who emphasize thinking and meaning to guide our actions.  Even though we have advanced our power through science, virtually every practical decision we originate is the outcome of faith in our interpretation, meaning - not proof.  We reason and act primarily on the faith we place in our beliefs and assumptions because proof and/or objective evidence are commonly absent.  Facts are interpreted relative to one’s perspective.   

          The first step to initiate change in your thinking is an assumption that your will-power can make a difference.  It is faith in your self.    “Yes, I can make a difference.  At least I will try.  Whatever, I can do my reasonable best.”  Don’t wait for “proof” that you can make a difference; you will wait a long time.  The opposite of belief in your capability is what I call the H/H response, hopelessness and/or helplessness.  Choosing the H/H response is the surest way to shut down your energy factory!   H/H leads to apathy, various means of avoidance, depression, and many ills you don’t want.

          What-to-do to believe you can make a difference:  Success breeds faith.  Once you start, the steps are quite manageable and you will experience some success.  Faith in your will power can become self-sustaining.  The problem for some is the initial small spark to take the first steps.  If you lack faith, borrow some from the inspiration of others.  They not only won’t mind; your success using what they have shown “works” furthers endorsement to their contribution.  Simply notice that others found a way; therefore, there is a way!

          I would like to be able to flap my arms and fly like a bird.  I don’t do so because I am convinced I would not succeed.  However, if I looked up and saw one person flapping his/her arms and flying, I would develop faith that there is a way!  I wouldn’t need to see a whole flock of people flying, just one would do.  There are persons all about you who succeed in making their life’s experience fulfilling.  If such individuals are not in your personal acquaintance, you may find abundant examples in the media, T.V., books, etc.  My favorite story is The Little Engine That Could.  You know it, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” made the difference. 

          Still stuck?  Then “Act as if.”  One of the most powerful ways to influence your self is to act as if.  Actors do it regularly.  They create the feelings of the role they wish to portray by going through the motions.  Even though you don’t feel a certain way, you can go through the motions.  By acting as if, you will bring about “feeling as if.”  With practice, the “as if” diminishes and you will have created a genuine feeling of “Yes, I can; I can at least try.  I can go through the motions.”

          The simple faith that there is a way for you, just as others have found, is the beginning of your journey to becoming your own person! 

Work

             I’m a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.   
                                                                                                            ... Thomas Jefferson

          Work is the application of energy to perform a task.  All living creatures produce energy.  You may choose to use it constructively, destructively, to waste it, or let it weaken from lack of use.  Work can be among the most satisfying of life’s experience.  Work is enjoyed when there is achievement, insight, understanding, and the like.  We experience a mental “aha,” “eureka” satisfaction that can reach the level of orgasm.  Freud concluded fulfillment is attained by leiben und arbeiten, love and work.  How wonderful when we love our work!

          Work that is productive is satisfying.  Work that adds meaning to your life is most satisfying.  Persons are more than willing to work and do so when it leads to fulfillment.  Even when there is no monetary compensation, people work to experience the satisfaction of feeling good and doing good.  You already have ample resource to work to attain what you want.  A little faith in yourself, the simple belief that what you do does make a difference, will unleash your “work” will power.              

Direction

“We are what we are because of others.”  It has been said we have the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of the giants who preceded us.  Nature has provided us a brain of such marvel as to rival the universe.  Over 50,000 years, our ancestors have developed and refined the language we each have received from our nurturers so that we may effectively put nature’s most powerful tool to work for us.   We have available to us the wisdom of history and contemporaries around the world, virtually instantly, in our own homes, through the mass media and communications technology we have created.  We have so much to gain from the generosity of nature and that of our nurturers.  It is yours for the asking.

          For the first twenty years or so of our life, most of us have received direction from others on how to live and how to make a living.  This Guide and other sources are resources designed to provide direction in the skill of self-management.  All this is to say that direction to skillfully take charge of your life’s experience and the wisdom to feel good and do good is the most readily available ingredient to the making of self-mastery.  If you are reading this Guide, appreciate that you are living in an environment where you have opportunity to freely pursue the skills of self-mastery and escape from the blind obedience so often demanded by others who would restrict your thinking. 

Patience

          We are each born with the motto, “I want what I want when I want it.”  Patience is clearly not a gift from nature.  It is a skill to be acquired.  The steps to patience are not difficult but they do require time and practice.  This was a disappointment to the individual who demanded, “Where can I take a crash course?”

          You will acquire patience by teaching your self to endorse yourself now for your current actions, when the material benefits may come later.  You may also practice and work to obtain the approval of others.  Endorsement from others is a worthy goal but a source of trouble when you require it.  Self-endorsement is a far more reliable source because  you maintain it under your own direction.  Ideally, you will enjoy working for acknowledgement from others.  However, free your self from dependence on others by creating your own daily requirements for self-endorsement.  This Guide contains multiple strens on the skill of self-endorsement, and you may turn to other sources and enjoy creating your own methods.  I personally believe the stren, The Reasonable Best measure of self-worth is among the most powerful.  Practice is the work required to attain a worthwhile skill.  Have you given up practicing a skill you desire because you lacked the immediate rewards to sustain your patience?  Try self-endorsement.

Risk-taking    

          Risk-taking is inherent in change.  One person compared our growth to that of the crustacean.  When we shed our old shell and let go of our old protection, necessary to grow, we are most vulnerable.  We have used the old method and it worked repeatedly.  It often has become habitual.  Even though what has repeatedly worked may be no longer effective, how can we give it up?  How does one justify personally and actively getting rid of “old friends”?  Deliberate neglect!, starvation!, murder!, all of the destructive methods we have been taught that are forbidden may be appropriate for change.  Yet, these active efforts using drastic methods may be required to replace what is presently with us for what now has become a wiser alternative.  It is said challenge provides opportunity but also danger. 

          Creating new ways to replace established habitual ones is best accomplished when based on rational thinking and wisdom.  We wisely engage in risk-taking with the support of the prior ingredients indicated.  As we turn to others for direction, there is considerable value in making an open issue with others of our proposed risk-taking.  We learn from other’s experience.  We act wiser with their knowledge.  We act braver with additional support.  We are less likely to take harmful action with good preparation.  Put plans into words.  Share them with friends, support persons, and counselors and/or trusted leaders.  Risk-taking is much easier when you use the support systems available to you.