Controversial title? It shouldn’t be. 

Whether you’re a man or a woman, black or white, upside down or right way up, there’s nothing that should ever be more important to an individual than the quality of their own thoughts. Let us explain…

As harsh as this sounds, from the beginning of your life to the end of your life, your thoughts will be the only permanent thing, since as long as you are alive, you can think.

Family definitely should be important too, but even family members can only be temporary. They come and they go, all the while you have to deal with whatever thoughts pop up into your head when they do end up coming and going. 

The same can be said for just about anything. Friends, material goods, sports, books, whatever you enjoy, its going to be temporary in one way or another. 

You might have a life threatening injury that prevents you from playing your favourite sport ever again, but guess what’s still there. You guessed correctly, your thoughts.

It’s our thoughts which can define how we look at a situation. Someone who loves to read can go blind, but someone who has a mind set to think only positive thoughts will now see the benefit, time efficiency and accessibility of audio books. 

Everything’s importance to us can only derive from the way we view it in our own head

I can tell you from personal experience that I thought video games were so important to me and that I essentially needed them to function in my everyday life. Turns out my thinking was flawed, I confined myself to a little box and when I finally had too much on my schedule to find the time for gaming, I found that I had no need to game at all. 

Something which I thought was a necessity to me became useless, all because I changed the way I thought. To replace video games, it was easy to find other, more productive hobbies. This included reading, going to the gym and exercising, or other various physical pursuits.

Every negative in some way, shape or form can be converted into a positive opportunity.

Society nowadays is hellbent on finding ways to suppress our negative thoughts and distract ourselves, rather than actually trying to truly fix our problems.

This is why you see people break up with their partner and all of a sudden, they turn to alcohol and drug abuse. The two don’t seemingly correlate, but somehow it is so common for people to now find alternative outlets of their negativity instead of facing their own demons head on. 

Too often do people come home from their unfulfilling jobs, only to turn on the TV and escape for a few hours after dinner. This is the prime example of an individual being scared of their own thoughts. They know that given the chance to be bored where it forces them to think about their life, they will be also forced to think about how shitty and unfulfilling their life is. 

 That is insanely hard to do. So that’s why people look to escape. 

They avoid asking themselves the hard questions that they need to ask themselves in order to grow and change. 

There is only one true solution to this. Force yourself to be with your thoughts more often. This is associated with our article on boredom, in which we spoke about how boredom is what creates a motivated individual, one that wants to overcome their own boredom by improving their lives. 

One good tip I can provide is that at every opportunity in which you are unable to do something truly productive, such as waiting for the bus, or walking home from the gym, rest with your thoughts. Don’t open up your phone and don’t listen to music through your headphones. Just take some time to slow down and think. 

Since our thoughts are always going to be with us, we need to find ways to improve the quality of our thoughts. This can only be done by forcing ourselves to think the things we think and then change them if we don’t like them. 

You don’t like it how your boss bullies you around? Maybe you don’t realise how much it truly affects you until when given the opportunity to rest with your thoughts, it infuriates you.

THAT’S WHEN YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

Then hopefully once you’ve done something about it, you’re not going to have those same negative thoughts again. 

It’s not rocket science, but it is essential for everyone to understand that the quality of their lives depends on the quality of their thoughts, so it is within everyone’s interests to improve their thoughts and be at peace with their own mind. 

Take care of yourself, don’t be too hard on yourself, but every time you see yourself reaching for some sort of escape, know that it won’t change the reality of the matter and it won’t give you that long lasting sense of fulfilment. It is only instantly gratifying, which should tell you already that it is not the right thing to do. 

You always know what the truly right thing to do is. So go and do it. Success favours the bold and the action takers. Now stop reading this article and go get 'em.