Humans are made for thinking. We think
lots of things: past and future and sometimes present. We are
thinking machines that never pause expect in deep sleep. We even
think when we yawn, “OMG what I am doing, stop it, stop it” but
it wont stop. So, are other things in life. We cannot control all
things in life yet we waste time thinking about it. Maybe its our
default nature. We tend to think too much into past,
regretting things we could have done but couldn't do. Also, we think
a lot about future that has yet not presented itself. So, our mind is
stuck processing two kinds of thoughts that constantly bombard our
mind, past and future. Whats more interesting in them is that they
generate two possible results. Some make you happy while some make
you sad. The ones that make you happy are ones related to your
achievement, your loved ones, your belongings, adventures, etc. And
the ones that make you unhappy are ones related to lost things
(people and money at top), fear for something that may get wrong,
etc. So, our mind is constantly tacking
various threads of thoughts that enter like stream, result of which
are happy or bad mood.
So, our mind can be looked as your
email box. Every thought that enters it is like an Email. That
thought can be independent (like thought that comes when you get
promotion for first time) or that are recurrent(every time your alarm
wakes you from sweet dream on cold morning). The former is like
independent mail and latter one is like email thread having same
topic. In Email, there are two kinds of possible outcomes of when you
open them. One is good one because you get some useful information
like you got your promotion. Obviously, it starts a thread of
congratulation emails in same thread for you. But, other type are
spams that when open can do malicious things to your system and even
to your personal life. They can crash your hard drive, or drop in
some male-ware that starts sending personal information to remote
server which can lead to anything. So, what is difference between
both type of emails, nothing. They are just emails with subject, body
and possible attachment. Since I developed email client myself at one
time, I know there are lot more thing in it apart from obvious things
listed. Yet, they look apparently the same in structure.
Fortunately in case of Emails, we have
developed many anti-spam system that use various ways to
automatically filter good genuine mails from spams. Its like
filtering wheat from chaff. So, we have two place in email, one
called the inbox where you normally focus your time while checking in
email and other called spam where all those spam mails go in. The
email server does no bad to spam mails but is generous enough to give
it some time (like a month or two) before deleting it forever. You
can have look at it if you want during that period and can even turn
it back into good mail(move it back into inbox).
Unfortunately, In case of mind, there
is no such thought filtering system. We do not filter our thoughts
the same way as emails are. They always end up getting processed by
mind resulting into various moods. The good thing is that there are
indeed two folders inside our brain for every thoughts just like
email, inbox and spam. They behave same way as do emails. But,
problem is we don't have filter system in place. Every thought that
enters ends up into mind 'inbox'. Result is that we end up processing
malicious and wrong thoughts that not only depresses us but encourage
us into wrong actions. Just like there email counterparts, they are
uncertain and take up huge amount of your minds time. They may fill
up your life with regret and lead to your down fall. Worse part is
that we tend to process them in real time without giving them time to
settle i.e. we think while they are still immature meaning
their outcome hasn't manifested itself yet.
We could filter every thought that
comes by sending the malicious/depressing ones into spam. Once inside
spam that thought gets locked up without getting any attention from
mind. After some time just as in case of email, that malicious
thought disappears forever. Our mind has very powerful weapon for
deleting unnecessary thoughts through process called 'forgetting'.
Our brain are made of neurons that die and generate all the time
unlike silicons. We could just store such malicious thought in one of
those dying neurons. After sometime, we may realize that the filtered
malicious thought wasn't actually bad (like thought of your recent
breakup which later helped you get into better relationship or
pursue your lifetime dream). We may now be store it as good one and
cherish it for life time. Its like moving mail marked spam back into
inbox. Good thing is we have prevented that thought from affecting us
while in immature state. We gave it some evaluation time when
we detected its malicious behaviour. If it was unable to get into good
one (remained sour for long time), we deleted them forever and once
that turned good later, we store it back as good memories. Result is
that our mind is full of good thoughts that enrich our lives. As
Buddha says, thought reflects our action which in turn reflects our
life.
So, next time before thinking about any
thought, try taking some time out filtering it and deciding whether
its worth your precious time. If its not, just ignore it and put it
into mind 'spam' folder and let it die its natural death. You should
lead a better life in that way.
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