The Element of Committing to Living and Thinking Differently, And its Hope for a New Tenor In Our Lives

Want to change the conditions in your life?

If you commit yourself to thinking and living differently, the conditions of your life will automatically change.

You will find yourself in a better place.

And the tenor of your life will be a harmonious one.

Harmony is something we can create.

Just as we can create dishes, or paintings, or (since Halloween was just yesterday), great Halloween decorations, or costumes, we can create harmony in our lives.

But first we have to commit to thinking and living differently.

We should choose to think and live mindfully, peacefully, simply, uneventfully - realizing the tenor of our lives is dependent on our thoughts and behavior.

Does it mean problems and crises will not happen in our lives?

Of course not!

Problems and crises will happen in all our lives.

That’s something which can’t be avoided.

But we don’t have to be the cause of a problem, or crisis.

It is self-created crises and problems we want to avoid.

Self-created problems are caused by losing control, or acting thoughtlessly, or carelessly, or angrily.

If we let self-created problems define our lives, they will cost us time, energy, money, and wasted emotion.

They will also weaken our reputation, and make people weary, or wary of us.

How much more sense it makes to stop ourselves before creating a crisis!

How much better to commit ourselves to being the author of only good events!

“Minoo, by good events, do you mean parties, picnics, special occasions, concerts, movies, get-togethers, and such?”

No, even just not creating situations, showdowns, fights, arguments and communication breakdowns is a good event.

And if we can take someone’s bad event, and make it better for them in some way….that is also a good event.

Every time we act kindly, bravely, graciously, thoughtfully, helpfully, and responsibly, when someone has a problem or crisis, our response to that person’s bad event makes it take on aspects of a good event.

All we have to do is to commit ourselves to being a help, not a hindrance, and to using our healing powers.

But Minoo, it is hard to avoid showdowns, fights, arguments, communication breakdowns, and nasty exchanges of words. 

After all, when someone needs a lesson, shouldn’t we give them a lesson?

When someone is being unfair, or unreasonable, how can we let them get away with it?

When someone needs a talking to, shouldn’t we give them a talking to?

Empathy is the answer.

We should change our approach from a “talking to”, to a “talking with” by showing empathy, and being empathetic.

We don’t have to get stuck in unproductive ruts….

Nice. Nasty. Nice.

Nice. Nasty. Nice.

Victim. Aggressor.

Victim. Aggressor.

Once upon a time, I was stuck in unproductive ruts.

One of the unproductive ruts was my tendency to fly off the handle at the drop of a hat.

Another unproductive rut was seething internally, and being passive-aggressive in my responses to situations I didn’t like.

Neither of these ruts was helpful to me.

When I started observing my thoughts, I realized wrong thinking was keeping me in these ruts.

Wrong thinking was keeping me from being a happier, more adjusted person.

I began to observe my thoughts, and I committed myself to replacing my unproductive thoughts with more sensible and compassionate thoughts.

Slowly, I began to change.

First hesitantly, then more securely.

Sure enough, as I started to do that, my circumstances began to change.

There were less self-created situations in my life.

Do you want to walk in my footsteps?

Do you want to get out of unproductive ruts, like I did?

My journey, and the tools which helped me, are narrated in several posts.  Maybe reading them will help you get going.

Read These Posts to Get Motivated to Get Out of Unproductive Ruts:

How Many Times a Day Do You Visit Ireland?

I Am a Good and Faithful Wife, I Deserve To Be Loved

If Life Is So Good, Why Do I Feel So Sad?

You Know About Wesabi.  How about Wabi Sabi?

Connected Minds

The Path To Change

Yoga for Investors

How to Become  A Low Maintenance Person

ICM - It’s Called Motherhood – 2

Here are some of the things you will learn from these posts:

You will learn how my relationship with my daughter changed.

You will learn how I conquered a depression.

You will learn how I learned to simplify my life.

You will learn how I came to embrace change.

You will learn how I restored sanity to my investing.

Yes, a lot can happen, when we commit ourselves to thinking and living differently.

If your thinking is weak right now, you should work on strengthening your thinking.

The best way to do that is to start observing your thoughts.

You can even write them down.

Writing down your thoughts is one of the best ways to strengthen your thinking.

It is the reason I blog.

If you start blogging, or writing a journal, I guarantee you, it will strengthen your thinking.

Yes, there will be challenges to our efforts to think and live differently.

And there will be temptations to stay just where we are, keeping on, as before.

But if we really truly deeply want conditions to change from the bottom of our hearts, then there is nothing that can stop us.

Yes, we will stumble and fall. I have many times.

But we can look at our failures as milestones on our path to a more harmonious life, and feel assured, that, bit by bit, our thinking and behavior is getting better every day.

Difficulties may need to be met and overcome.

We may not be able to alter any condition immediately, or directly.

But bit by bit, if we keep altering our thoughts, actions and habits, our circumstances will eventually change.

Compassion, understanding, tolerance, forgiveness, and empathy are important tools for our journey.

Open-mindedness, patience, sacrifice and optimism will also be required.

We have to lift our thoughts higher and higher.

Our ego is our own worst enemy; the biggest foe; the enemy that needs to be conquered.

It will not be on our side, as we try to lift our thoughts higher.

We may have to turn to a higher power to vanquish our egos. 

We should keep focused on our vision for ourselves - which is a more harmonious and blessed life.

Read my post The Element of Not Letting Our Ego Keep Us Locked on a Fruitless Course and Its Hope for Making Better Use of Our Energy and Time for encouragement to remain focused.

My post, The Element Of Learning How to Handle Things and Its Hope For Being More at Peace With Ourselves and my post, The Element of Creating A New Reality and Its Hope for Living A Powerful Life might also help keep you on track.

We have it in us to change our lives, and live more harmoniously, no matter how challenging our current circumstances are, and how overwhelmed we feel.

We just have to commit to thinking and living differently.

Then, you and me, both, we have to put one foot in front of the other, until we have met our goal.

Harmony - how sweet the sound of it!

As always, thanks for reading, and have a great day and week….M……a Pearl Seeker like you.   

P.S. This week brought nourishing comments from Ajay, Aarathi and David, and I thank them for that.  Thanks also to the rest of you for your likes, pins and votes.  Much appreciated.

P.S. 2  I read a great book this week, Winners Dream by Bill McDermott. In this book, Bill McDermott chronicles his life from newspaper delivery boy to CEO of SAP.  It is pure inspiration, especially for sales people.