Leo, over at ZenHabits has another excellent post – Can You Spot These 10 Thinking Sins?
His list reads -
- I will be happy once I have _____ (or once I earn $X).
- I wish I were as ____ as (a celebrity, friend, co-worker).
- Seeing others becoming successful makes me jealous and resentful.
- I am a miserable failure – I can’t seem to do anything right.
- I’m going to beat so-and-so no matter what – I’m better than him. And there’s no way I’ll help him succeed – he might beat me.
- Dammit! Why do these bad things always happen to me?
- You can’t do anything right! Why can’t you be like Johnny?
- Your blog sucks. It’s super lame. You should stop writing, because you’re a moron and I hope you never reproduce.
- Oh yeah? Well up yours too!
- I don’t think I can do this – I don’t have enough discipline. Maybe some other time.
The great thing about this list is the one common thread through them all. They are all story. They are all completely made up and based on opinion. They have no fact. The great mistake of the thinking mind is the loop of thinking that its thoughts have reality and are not simply a tool for navigating what is. We get so caught into this loop that we can’t see out. The reality though is that the seeing is the container for the thoughts, the thinking and all those things which could be thought about.
We need story to deal with life, to survive, and to cooperate. But, we are not our story. We are beyond that.
