Your Thought Creates Your Experience - Mon., Nov. 25

Your thought creates your experience. 

 **Or**

Present reality is a manifestation of past thoughts. 

 Hmm...let's think about that.

I questioned that philosophy but couldn't put my finger on why I didn't believe it. This morning as I was trying to go back to sleep, my brain worked on those oversimplified statements.

Here is a revised philosophy that reflects my current beliefs: Your thoughts and actions, combined with choices, chaos, and chance, create your experience. Let me explain.

I have heard the opening statements used to make people feel guilty about being sick or poor or out of work. Really? That's a bunch of hokum.

Sickness, disease, plagues, and ad nauseum, are caused by more than your thoughts. Viruses, molds, bacteria, and bugs/parasites/rodents play a role in diseases. How you come into contact with those organisms is a result of chaos, chance, and your choices, not your thought processes. Stressors such as lack of sleep, poor nutrition, and lack of (or too much) exercise also cause sickness, injuries, and death.

Thought processes or heredity CAN be causes of mental/psychological disorders or stress, or not. (Mind you, these are just a few examples.)

• Schizophrenia may be caused by genes, but it is not for certain. 
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is likely a combination of stress and thought processes. For example, soldiers who have lost comrades on the battlefield or who have killed others have been through incredible stressors, and have seen death and destruction multiple times; many sustain life-changing injuries. I can't imagine the horrors they have been through. Those stressors are the results of war. But soldiers also put stress on themselves feeling guilty for those deaths and destruction, thinking they could have saved their fellow soldiers and why did they die, not me? ("60 Minutes" had an excellent story on PTSD on November 24, 2013.)
• Children who have been abused are an example of those whose thoughts or choices did NOT create their experience. Those experiences were foisted upon them by others which I think is a heinous crime.

The opening statement also implies there's something wrong with you. Your thoughts caused you to be sick, poor, have no friends, lose your job, whatever. I don't believe it. External factors are also at play here:

• You work in a hospital or daycare center and are exposed to more sicknesses
• The company you work for lost major contracts causing loss of income resulting in cutting staff
• You may not have found good friends who share your interests
• Your friends may have changed and moved on in their lives
• A leak in your roof allowed water to come in, you didn't discover it and are now faced with mold which causes allergies or sickness

You see where I'm going with this. You can only do so much. External forces create chaos you have no control over. Chance and luck of the draw affect your reality as well.

You can control how you perceive the world, but not how others perceive the world or you. You can offer help, advice, a kind word, or a sympathetic ear, but it doesn't mean the other person will change their reality to fit yours.

I looked up this topic online to see what else was out there and found this blog. It is quite interesting.

Please tell me your perceptions on this topic in the comments section. I love hearing from you.

I'm done trying to solve philosophical issues for today. Maybe I can go back to sleep now.

Integrity, Intention, Integration, Identity -- Wed., Apr. 10

I think integrity is extremely important in living one's life. Integrity says a lot about who you are and how you deal with others and the world. Integrity is a combination of making the right choices and following through on those choices; morality, if you will.

Dictionary.com (based on The Random House Dictionary [Copyright 2013]) defines integrity as follows:

1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
2. the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: to preserve the integrity of the empire.
3. a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition: the integrity of a ship's hull.

 The best definition on Reference.com, one that sums up integrity in a nutshell is:

Integrity is adherence to a moral code reflected in honesty and harmony in what one thinks, says and does.

When you have integrity, people can rely on you to do what you say. You know the old saying, "Actions speak louder than words"? Actually when you say the words, your actions should match if you are in integrity in your life. If your actions do not match your words, because you don't do what you said you would, people start to distrust you or won't rely on you.

As I was researching integrity, I stumbled upon a wonderful article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Integrity," copyright Spring 2013 edition, by Cox, Damian, La Caze, Marguerite, and Levine, Michael. The in-depth research and thought put into the article are mind boggling and you can chew them over in your mind at your leisure, if you so desire. Just click on the link above.

How do you self-identify? What are your intentions? What philosophy of life do you follow?