Thought Control

Thinking too much consciously is a waste of resources. Still, we insist in keeping and allowing conscious thoughts contaminate the innate purity of our minds. Is it because we think all thoughts are neccesary? What about unconscious thoughts?

History and psychology prove time after time, that great creative ideas just pop up. Seemingly out of nowhere. Factually, when you aren't thinking about the problem whatsoever and unconscious thinking does the job by itself. And again, some other great creative ideas can develop while you're concentrated in one thing at a time. And this leads us to the conclusion that it really pays off to hold a maximum of 1 conscious thought at any given time.

This subject is of extreme importance, because it is through thoughts or the lack of them that we can learn to control our mind. And gaining authority over the mind, is equal to being in charge of the control tower; from where things like choices, behavior and will power are much easier to manage.

Living in the past

Worries and guilt about past events can have some uses, in small doses. But it doesn't help much to go reminiscing negative experiences, because literally speaking, they were just that. And there's nothing in the world we can do to bring back the past.

Justifying living in the past as means of gaining experience from it is valid up to a low point. Because learning from experiences, though a great thing to do, doesn't take much time or space. It's an almost instinctive revelation that even Newton's laws of motion explain so simply: Every action (even thoughts) create a reaction of equal magnitude in the opposite direction (back at you, in lay terms). There's no way you can change this universal law. So the moment of recognition of the reaction caused by the action is done very fast. The key is in the attitude we choose to take from that recognition, before, during and after it appears. In many intelligent people and most animals the choice is obvious: Learn from it by repeating it if the reaction was positive, or avoiding it if the reaction was negative.

Visiting the past once in a while to draw experience, associations, recorded knowledge and positive moments and memories, is the natural way to go. As well as paying attention to the most very recent past moments, in order to make better sense of the presence. Otherwise it's neither fair nor useful to steal valuable present moments because we can't let go of the past.

Multitasking in the present

Between the certainty of the past and the uncertainty of the future is the present, the “right now”. It's so miraculous because even when it only lasts the shortest of moments, it's where all the action takes place. Everything happens there. Even when we waste it unnecessarily in the idea of past and future events.

Apart from this, there's another effective way to waste the quality of our present moments, and it's when we press them forward with the illusion of multitasking. Originally a term from computer engineering, multitasking refers the ability of a microprocessor to apparently process several tasks simultaneously, while in reality tasks are only rotated very fast. The same happens in human multitasking.

A study by Meyer and David Kieras proved that the brain cannot fully focus when multitasking, people take longer to complete tasks and are predisposed to error. When people attempt to complete many tasks at one time, or switch rapidly between them, errors go way up and it takes far longer—often double the time or more—to get the jobs done than if they were done sequentially. This is largely because “the brain is compelled to restart and refocus” so in the interim between each exchange, the brain makes no progress whatsoever. Therefore, multitasking people not only perform each task less suitably, but lose time in the process.

Dwelling in the future

The future, whatever its nature, always comes after the present. We wait for it anxiously because we can never be 100% sure of what to expect. And thinking about the future convinces us that the present is only temporary, and so we learn to lose respect for those valuable present moments.

Worrying about the future is synonymous to believing and acting upon a terrible imagined scenario instead of finding logical solutions to make sure future outcomes are better than expected.

Every time we use the present to stress about the future, we’re choosing to sacrifice joy today to mourn joy we might not have tomorrow. It may seem like we’re creating solutions or somehow protecting ourselves from pain, but in all reality, we’re just causing ourselves more of it.