At the most trying times, I find that I am blind to this universal principle, which is nonetheless absolutely true — in the sense of completely always — that even when I am not aware of it, the reflex-based negative, pessimistic thought response patterns represent the opposite of what I should actually put my trust in.
Generally, these angry, paranoid thoughts just sort of crop up all over the place inside my mind, and I have consistently found it to be the case that these types of thoughts are based on fantasies of fear, on anticipation of pain, on expecting the worst, and not on anything to do with reality whatsoever.
Let me actually say it completely all over again, differently. Okay. I can do this.
Whenever I start getting worried, or stressed, or when I start experiencing that awful certainty that something bad is about to happen (or that my entire life is one giant bad thing that is about to culminate in a cataclysm of ultimate bad thingery) I need to just stop right there and be like, “Look, self, here is the deal: you always do this, and it’s always wrong. It always wrecks your day. It never helps anything. You need to do the opposite, instead. You need to decided to smile at pain instead of bow to it. You need to give yourself a break. Stop giving the misfortunes of this life the power to steal your joy.”
These ruminations and troubled thoughts represent a self-fulfilling prophecy of worthlessness and defeat. Why allow them to continue? There is a place of victory that is available to be had, free for the taking, permanently on offer from heaven itself, from which the administration of perpetual success can be carried out freely and fully.
And so, resolved: every time there is an overwhelming sense of failure and hopelessness that rises up in response to some sideways jab, issued by someone or something affirming the beauty of success in a pursuit at which I have undeniably failed more miserably than most, I will exercise a certain inner rolling to the side, out of the finding of security and peace in the accomplishment of that particular thing, and into the eternally abiding security and peace that have been established by forces that are far above and way beyond my own ability to control or to comprehend.
