Stop Assuming the Worst: Your Thoughts Shape Your Reality

“Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.” ~Buddha

My morning bicycle ride had been uneventful until I spotted a small lump in the middle of the bike path. It wasn’t a twig, a dead mouse, or a smelly “gift” from a dog, which are some of the most common sightings during my rides.

It was a perfect, intact slice of bread.

In a nanosecond, my mind created several versions of how this piece of bread had ended up where it was.

I pictured a young mother pushing a stroller and her two-year-old tossing the bread out to the side. But no one in her right mind would give a whole slice of bread without butter or jam to a picky toddler.

“Well,” I said to myself, “Maybe this was the woman’s first child, and she had no clue what to feed little children.” Now, this woman’s poor choices had resulted in perfectly good food being wasted.

My mind then traveled to countries where a good slice of bread (or any kind of food) is very hard to find, and I started to feel anger.

That’s when a voice inside told me, “There you go again, making up stories in your head.” I chuckled at my crazy imagination. And that’s when it hit me: We all create stories in our head, and many of these stories make our lives miserable.

I used to be a pro at assuming the worst.

I remember being upset that a friend seemed to be ignoring me and hadn’t returned my emails, until I realized I had been sending the messages to her old (and inactive) address.

I recall the time I paid an evening visit to Wal-Mart, and when I spotted a man running in my direction in the parking lot, I thought I was going to be attacked. The man only wanted to ask for a couple of dollars because his motorcycle had run out of gas.

I remember a time in my life in which all the pieces were falling perfectly into place, and instead or rejoicing in the moment, I wondered when the next disaster would happen because life couldn’t be so good.

The stories in our head are courtesy of our subconscious mind, which has been programmed since the moment of our conception. But without going into the technicality of how our subconscious mind is programmed, what matters is that we make our own reality.

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