No tags yet.
Hey Thinking Mechanicians - we hope you are well and you are thinking about what you are thinking about. It surprises us sometimes how in the rush of life, when we stop and realise what we are thinking about how we always seem to have thoughts that we know are not a help to us. The great thing about our thoughts is we can always choose what we feed our brains - that is best bit about being human.
This week we are talking about the problem of passive thinking. Not in the normal sense of passive thought but taking a leaf from the "passive smoking" tree. When we talk about passive smoking we are talking about another person's actions affected other people without the consent of those people. That cigarette smoke can be passively breathed in by someone who is close to the smoker and that this can have a negative impact on the passive partaker.
Recently, we realized the same can apply to our thoughts. That our thoughts can be hugely affected by those people around us. In fact, not just people but the what we watch on TV, what we read in the newspaper, what we see advertised, The list goes on. If we are not careful we can allow external factors in our life to affect how we think. We are, like a passive smoker allowing something else, without our permission, affect us and in many cases, like passive smoking, it ain't good for us!
Thinking Mechanics is based on the biblical truth that we change our lives by first "renewing our minds (or how we think)". Our thoughts are so IMPORTANT to how we then subsequently lead our lives. Our thoughts are the genesis of pretty much everything we do and experience. If you think about that it starts to make you realise that policing your thoughts and training your thinking is as important as training your body so you "experience" fitness. If we allow ourselves to be passively affected by other peoples words and opinions or what we hear in the media this can be very damaging to what we think about which can then have a ripple effect across our lives..
You will not need to go very far back to remember the last time you were negatively affected by how someone else treated you or what they said about you. Much the same way someone who is "passively smoking" can make a deliberate choice to say "no" I do not want that smoke affecting my body, I will move or ask the smoker to move the same deliberate action can be made when it comes to passive thinking.
The great aspect of our design as humans is our gift of being about to decide what we think about, how we feel, and our attitude towards any given person and/or environment - regardless of what that person and/or environment is delivering to us. You have been designed NOT to be affected "passively" by anyone or any situation. You have the authority to decide. No one else.
Below is a ongoing resolution (see our post in new year thinking) we made to ourselves at Thinking Mechanics. Regardless of the situation, we choose how we think, how we feel and what our attitude is. This is God's gift to us all - free will and it is this that He uses to empower us to create and develop into the the very best version of ourselves.
Until we meet again Thinking Mechanicians - think well and think good.