The most valuable lessons
I have ever learned in my life!
"There is nothing either good or bad
but thinking makes it so."
-- William Shakespeare
[Classic post from 8-27-16]
It is what we say it is. It is what we think it is. It is what we feel about what we think it is. It is what we believe it is by what we think, say, feel, and do. There is no such thing as the truth, but as many truths as there are those to think something about truth. In other words, we make it all up. We may choose to believe what someone else made up, but if not us, someone made it up somewhere along the line.
Everything is neutral until we make it something.
This lesson from William Shakespeare has always been one of my favorite quotes from my first reading of it. It caused me to consider what it was saying, and I have taken its message to heart, and in so doing, it has changed my life for the better.
I need to periodically remind myself by looking at it again, or remembering that whatever I am looking at, I am deciding what that is by what I am thinking, and consequently feeling about it.
When I was very young, I was being taught right from wrong, often accompanied by punishment if I chose incorrectly. I didn't much like pain, so I endeavored to learn the right and avoid the wrong, but sometimes I was just not paying attention and wandered off into the wrong territory. I also learned that this wasn't really so much of a problem unless my parents found out.
It's like today. Every time I get in my truck, I break the law. I don't try to, but sometimes I'm just not paying close enough attention. Going 30 mph in a 25 mph area, going 70 or 75 mph on the freeway keeping up with all the other people doing at least that, and some much more, when the speed limit is 65 mph. Every single time I drive anywhere, I break the letter of the law somewhere along the way. I'm not alone by any stretch of the imagination, and luckily, it is rare to get caught in these errors.
There are a lot of things like this where choices are made that have a label of good or bad, legal or illegal, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, and more. We make it all up--every bit of it. Someone just decided to set a speed limit at a certain level, and they made up what the punishment would be if they caught you exceeding it, and sometimes, or maybe often, by how much.
It's all made up by someone. In fact, there are entire governments that are fashioned around all of this stuff, with courts, lawyers, judges, jails, and treasuries to handle the load of wrong-doers, law-breakers, and such. It's an entire bureaucracy in action.
And thinking makes it so.
I get to choose too. I get to choose my thinking. I get to choose what I want to label something. I get to choose how I feel about something by what my thoughts are on the subject. Others may have their thoughts and feelings, and they may or may not match my own, so we all get to choose.
What a fantastic lesson this is to learn. I get to choose all of it. I make it so by what I choose to think about it. I create my own beliefs. I create good or bad. I create right or wrong. Others may choose as well. They may even try to get me to believe what they believe, to think what is true is what they say is true. So be it. Let them choose. We cannot really stop it anyway. And, the good news about that is that they cannot stop me either.
It Is What I Think, Say, And Believe It Is. I Alone Decide For Myself As I Allow That.
Spread Some Joy Today--by making your own choices about joy or not joy, spreading it or not spreading it. Do as you wish. Consider it as you will.
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