Thoughts on Thoughts

I spend a great majority of my work life trying to tell people what an enormous impact our thinking has on the way our life turns out. Diagrams, charts, overheads, worksheets, videos, stories, quotations, speakers, you name it. I guess I am officially in the buisness of "people-improvement," but only in the sense that Craftsman is in the business of home improvement.

We can recieve the tools to improve something, but ultimatley, it is our choice whether we implement those tools to better ourselves and our surroundings. My hope is the investments made over the years pay off.

I have bounced back and forth for ages on the decicion making; as to whether it originates from feelings or thinking. I have heard gobs of theory and explanation supporting both. Since both thinking and feeling are both legitimate and, at times, faulty, I can't really say what proginates our decision making.

I do believe, however, that feelings are influenced by thinking, ergo, I will assume our thinking drives our emotions. For example, when you see a child with cancer, you will conjure up a plethora of emotions, ranging from sadness, compassion, fear, and injustice. The latter provides me with the basis of my conclusion. Where do we get the emotion of injustice--the fact that something bad has happened, but yet we know it should not be thus?

Where does anger come from? Love? Et al? I believe our emotions are a response to our paradigm--we feel a certian way because things are in or out of order. We feel injustice with the young lukemia patient because we know kid's shouldn't get cancer. We get angry at wasteful bureaucrats because we know they should be thrify guardians of the public trust.

Our emotions are a reflection of our mind, our thinking. They tell you what you think about a certian situation. They are not meant to dictate your behavior.

Just some thoughts on thoughts.