I Think, Therefor I Am
A man is sitting at a bar, drinking one beer after another. When the man orders another beer, the bartender says: “I think you have had enough to drink for today!”. The man sitting at the bar says” I think not!” and he dissapears into thin air.
In the 17th century René Descartes came up with an explanation for everything in our life; “I think, therefor I am”. Is this really true? I think I feel happy, therefor I am happy. I think this guy insulted me, therefor I am insulted. I think I am able to let that grudge go, therefor I am able to let it go, etc. Our thoughts have a direct effect on how we are or what we do. First you have a thought or believe, than you have an action.
I strongly believe that whatever we focus on, we will attract into our life. I do not only base this on the experiences in my own life, but even the bible has some interesting quotes about this subject. One of the quotes is: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”.
So what does that mean? Do we make our own luck? Do we create our diseases? I think we do. Of course no one is asking to get into an accident or get a disease, so how is it possible that all this shit happens in the world?
The universe always provides you with what you ask for. You might not be aware of the fact that you are ‘asking’ the universe something, but fact is that you give the universe direction with your thoughts. This can be conscious or subconscious. We have approximately 50.000 to 60.000 thoughts a day, that’s a lot! Most of those thoughts are repeats. If you repeat a thought over and over again, the universe will pick this up and take action.
I used to think that I was never lucky. Whenever something bad happened, it was always me, never someone else. I got jealous of people who seemed to be lucky all the time, who had everything I wanted. I could never enjoy being happy, because I didn’t believe it would last long, something would happen to spoil the fun. And guess what? My thoughts brought me exactly that! I always got into bad situations, got sick a lot, met the wrong people, had boyfriends cheat on me, etc.
So how do you avoid all that? By changing your thoughts. That sounds easy doesn’t it? But it is! Sure it is not an overnight miracle cure, it might take some time for the universe to pick up your new positive vibes. But if you persist on focusing on all the good things you want in your life, than you will receive. Ask, believe and receive. It doesn’t mean you can just sit back and wait for things to happen. You have to take some action too. But isn’t that with everything in our life? Planting your butt on the couch in front of the TV has never helped anyone meeting the love of you life or getting you your dream job, etc.
So in order to change your life for the better you need to change your thoughts or the way you talk to yourself. Instead of thinking “I can’t do it” you can change it into “I can do anything I put my mind to”. Change every negative thought you have into a positive one. It’s not always easy, I catch myself thinking negatives thoughts every day, but once I am aware of it I stop myself and rephrase the thought. You will notice that if you are persistent, things start to happen.
Want to read more about this?
- Mystic Eye has an article about this called You are what you think.
- Steve Pavlina has an article called The Law of Attraction.
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June 5th, 2007 at 9:09 am
[...] The secret is a movie based on the law of attraction. I already wrote about the law of attraction in I think, therefor I am. Below you can see the first 20 minutes of the [...]
June 6th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Hello, mrs. Sparrow :o)
I stumbled across your article in a search on who it was again that came up with the famous “I think, therefor I am” and I must say, you are so right. Life is as you look at it. Objectively speaking, life is a miserable as it is beautiful. There’s a negative side and a positive side to every situation and in every person. You can choose for yourself on which to focus and by that you can choose the way you experience life.
I changed my outlook on life quite a bit over the years and it has done nothing but good for me. I feel more love, I see more beauty and I have more ‘luck’.
I am not so sure it’s the Universe that picks up my positivity though, because to me that’s a little bit too vague. For now I’ll just leave the Universe to be one big empty vacuum. With lots of shiny stars in it. :o)
No, I like to think it’s closer to home than that. I feel it has something to do with our shared subconcious. I like to see this as a powerful force field that, as everything else, containes both negativity and positivity. It’s existence could never be scientifically proven but for instance meditation (or hallucinogens) make(s) it possible to be consiously aware of it. I feel it is this force that we influence by changing our outlook on life and it would seem to me that it can influence us by amplifying what we put in it. Like tapping into either it’s positive power by love or into it’s negative power by fear. I could even go as far as to say that perhaps that is what we like to call ‘God’ AND ‘Devil’…
Also, or because of this, we should not underestimate the power of our own minds. We only use about ten percent of our brain and yet we have so many powers - telepathy, intuition, even poltergeists, to randomly name a few - that one can only start to imagine what life would look like if we’d be able to use all of it. For starters, we’d be one. And I think our instinct still tells us we should all be connected to each other - so we created the internet - while all the time we already are but just not powerful enough to actually notice, let alone use it. But maybe I’m getting a bit carried away here.. :o)
Anyway, it doesn’t matter what you believe because we will never be able to comprehend it anyway. The only importance is that believing it makes it work for you. Whether you’re a Christian, a Muslim, a New Age-y kind of person or just someone with a positive outlook on life. Having said that, I think having faith in a God - or indeed the Universe - makes it easier for people to accept and appreciate the presence of a positive force, even though I clearly have my own ideas on how things might work.
About the quote that got me here in the first place, it is simply not true. I realised this the first time I reached a state of trance through meditation. One can reach this state only by shutting off the otherwise ongoing stream of thoughts - either by actively banning every single thought from your head or just by concentrating on absolutely nothing. The very moment the last thought leaves your mind you enter your own Universe. You fly, you can heal your own body and mind, you can do anything, but you don’t think. Really, at this point you just ‘are’. Now I guess that would mean “I think not, therefor I am” or “I think, therefor I am not”, but proving that quote to be right or wrong is pretty much useless, because it’s an irrelevant statement anyway.
To me, “I want, therfor I can” is what gives me the power to achieve anything I want. I am at a point where it is becoming more and more clear to me what it is that I actually want - and I know that that is the only reason I will be able to achieve it. This would never be possible if I still thought I couldn’t.
Life cannot be planned though, and you might never get where you want the way you thought you would, but I do realise now that the power of positivity is limitless. It has the power to help you overcome any obstacle life throws at you - with a smile on your face and love in your heart.
Thank you for inspiring me to give words to my feelings, allowing me one small step closer to ‘getting it’. You know, the meaning of life… and such.
With warmest regards,
Emiel Zwaneveld, The Netherlands.
[gewoon_emiel@yahoo.com]
P.S.
There is nothing to fear
but fear itself.June 6th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Hi Emiel, thank you so much for taking the time to reply. It’s nice to read someone else’s point of view and how it helps you in your life. It has taken me a long time to come to the realization that I’ve been creating my own bad luck. And I’ve also come to the realization that life throws lots of surprises at you. Even if you ask for something, you might not always get what you want, or you get it in a way you could never imagine. Anyway, thanks again for your comment, it has been really inspiring to me and gave me new thoughts to ponder on!
June 15th, 2007 at 5:12 am
[...] Sparrow presents I Think, Therefor I Am posted at Mrs. [...]
June 15th, 2007 at 7:43 am
I believe that the quote, “I think, therefore I am” was his end result of the search for proof that he exists. He was the doubting philosopher. He doubted everythings very existance and his main way of deciding that he did, indeed, exist is because he was able to think.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:43 am
Parents, you should tell this to your kids. And explain that it can go further than a new toy they want, or to be able to rollerblade inside the house…if they go through life with this mindset, it would be a great new generation. I sure can say that MINE has some problems, but the Law of Attraction wasn’t even made when the Class of 2002 was born.