Frames of Mind

Some­times I am in the same frame of mind for days at a time. It is merely habit to see things the same way, have the same motives, and mind­lessly go about my life. After a while, a sort of dull­ness man­i­fests itself. I am wear­ing out an emo­tional gear. I have let my psy­che get lazy, and now I am pay­ing for it.

Find­ing another way of feel­ing takes some imag­i­na­tion. It is as sim­ple as going from life as task to life as play. You do the same things, but with a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. Your ener­gies return. Once again, life is fresh and new. You won­der why you let your­self drift along in semi-misery so long before you decided to over­haul your life-approach.

Going on vaca­tion or tak­ing a day off may not help. If you drag same exhausted mind­set along, you will feel no bet­ter when you return. This takes delib­er­ate choice and a cre­ative con­ver­sa­tion with your­self. Some­times it takes shut­ting down your think­ing com­pletely. A good place to start is by get­ting out of your head and get­ting back into nature.

Ulti­mately, there is one source for all of our hap­pi­ness or mis­ery: the imag­i­na­tion. Worry is a lazy imag­i­na­tion — one eas­ily led by the cyn­i­cism of our times. Opti­mism is silver-lining with pos­i­tive expec­ta­tions the most mun­dane sit­u­a­tions. It has a way of increas­ing life’s energies.

Win­ning the lot­tery will not change you, but empow­er­ing your imag­i­na­tion will. It can make heav­ens out of hells and turn frowns into smiles - with­out cost­ing you one red cent. Life is how we see more than what we see.