Thoughts

A Personal Journal

Do we have any control over our own thoughts?

A wonderful question I encountered the other day. Do we even have a conscious existence other than our thoughts? I cannot see how. While there is an unconscious existence of physical needs and emotive desires, consciousness is predicated on and implemented by thoughts. We are what we think. Thoughts are abstractions however, and can occur on multiple levels. Thoughts can control and direct other thoughts and can compete with other thoughts for attention and power. The underlying sources of power are the ends we most value and the time horizon which the thought encompasses. Our values are those that satisfy our needs and desires. While we may be conscious of them, our only method of controlling them is with other thoughts of more powerful needs and desires. It is the direction and control of these thoughts that provide our ability to defer present gratification for future rewards. We are the embodiment of our thoughts which direct and control our future actions. Our minds are predictive devices. The more accurate and capable predictions are, the more control we have and the more successful we become. For fundamentally, we do not exist separate from our thoughts.

- Life is what our thoughts make of it. - Marcus Aurelius

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