Covid 19. That is the thing. That is the thing that changed the way we used to think, the way we used to work. It showed some of the realities that we never thought possible. It put us in a place to try some new things that we never had tried before. Yes. It changed the world, its people and their institutions and relationships with each other.

Now we all understand the power of the invisible things and their effects on our lives. Simply Covid 19 is a virus which is invisible and yet massively powerful to kill people. Day by day, the death toll rises slowly but steadily. We expect that the world would find a remedial solution to this, so that we can start our normal lives again.

Your thoughts too are invisible. But had you known that they are powerful and can have a colossal impact on you. Precisely speaking, the effects of your thoughts can be viewed as the consequences of your choice of actions that were the direct results of the thoughts you created consistently.

Covid 19 forced the governments around the world to enforce regulations to ensure social distancing. We used to work very close physically with each other, but although still we love it, we have doubts and fears to do it further especially with the new relationships we want to build.

Yes. Things will change. Things must change. But, we too must change. In this world we see both good and bad side by side. It is not a thing to get surprised as the viewer (you or I) also have both good and bad in our personal human system. However the beginning of those good and bad qualities is the thoughts that we continuously and consistently think.

Have you ever asked and answered these questions?

Do you think? Do you know that you think? Do you know that your thinking has affected you so far? Can your parents and teachers teach you better ways of thinking? Do you know that you are the one who is responsible for the quality of your thoughts? Have the various subjects you studied taught you the art of thinking critically? Can you find strengths and weaknesses of your thinking?

According to the philosopher Emerson, thinking is the hardest thing in the world. Many of the world’s best thinkers have agreed with him on that issue. Here by thinking we don’t mean day dreaming, thinking by feelings or passive thinking. The hardest thinking is “critical thinking”. It contains our understanding of our own thinking, our unbiased judgment of  our thought habits and patterns, our commitment to persistently think of an important matter that will solve a problem for us and others and improving our quality of life with better thoughts that precede our actions, behavior, performance and character.

The education system successfully provides information to you via various resources. But don’t expect it to tell or teach you how to use that information. Finding how to use that information is up to us. We must figure out what we do with the information that was provided to us. We must originate our own connections of ideas. We must understand when to apply what we know in our day to day lives. That is hard right? Yes. That is why, the philosopher Emerson accurately and accurately said that thinking is the hardest thing in the world. Now do you agree with what he said?

To think, one must have information, concepts and time. Most of us are very busy and find that we don’t have time to think to make things better. Yes. That is the practical life we live today. Everyone is busy. That is why powerful businesses have their own Research and Development (R & D) units to conduct researches to produce better information and develop them into knowledge with which they can deliver better quality products to us that astonish us as we buy and use them. Those businesses know that if they don’t establish those R & D units, they will fail to “think properly”. They know that people don’t think properly, so they have a “thinking department” that primarily does “proper thinking” that then have profound impacts on the lives of people.

The point here is, each one of us has to find some time to sharpen our thinking skills. We must establish “our own thinking department” in ourselves by reserving some time to this purposeful activity. Since we don’t do this, we have completely become victims of our past thinking. We live today according to the thoughts we had yesterday. If the yesterday’s thoughts are wrong, one must not expect the life today is right and the life in the future will never be right if we don’t break the wrong thinking today.

Thoughts program us. By thinking properly, we have to program our thoughts and observe how they program our language, performance and character. We all need best results in the things we do in our lives. We can increase the likelihood of attaining the best results that we dream when we improve our personal level of thinking that would program our process of actions towards such results.

Our best project in life is and should be “improving the quality of our thoughts”. We must keep more of our time to do more of that and let our actions guided by that higher level of thinking. We have a world inside us. We don’t live in that world as we don’t give enough time to live there. In that world we have the life we want but we never lived so far. In that world we see our best selves that we need to bring to the reality. In that world we can make things happen rather than wait until others make them happen. In that world we reach our highest form of happiness by combining our abilities to overcome our challenges. In that world we use our spiritual and intellectual allies to overcome our egoistic and selfish inner enemies. In that world we are guided by the top rather than by the bottom. In that world we are connected to the source of our lives to which one day we will return. So why don’t we live there, “at least few minutes” in a day?

By:
Dulip Luckshan Fernando
Teacher of Visakha Vidyalaya Colombo 05
econbus.online@gmail.com