For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a single nail.
Just working through your feelings using words is not “thinking”. Only thinking through them is thinking.
Check yourself: Are you feeling depressed? Repressed? Oppressed? Or perhaps just compressed?
Get specific and win the day!
You cannot modify, alter or control time; it is our master. What you can modify, alter and control, however, is your effort.
Naturally, time cannot be ignored; it is a very relevant factor. But without consistent directed effort, you will achieve nothing, effectively rendering meaningless whatever time you’ve spent.
So when you are working towards achieving anything in life, you are best served by focusing your energies & attention on the quality & magnitude of the effort you are directing to the task at hand, rather than paying a great deal of attention to the time it may take.
What’s the difference?
Courage is the decision to apply your will. Persistence is applying your will over & over again until you have achieved your desired outcome.
You can’t even begin to communicate effectively until you have both confidence in and respect for what you are thinking.
If you are an average person, you can probably run down the street quite capably without undue effort or stress. But this doesn’t mean that you automatically possess the capability to complete an Ironman event.
Pretty straightforward, right? But oddly enough, when it comes to thinking, people tend to ignore this simple rationale. They often expect to automatically be able to think powerfully & critically about a huge variety of extraordinarily complex issues, circumstances & ideas. And when they fail to do so, they are either shocked or disappointed or both.
Consider this: Having a body does not make you an athlete. And having many thoughts in your mind does not constitute thinking. Just because you can think your way through a typical day doesn’t mean that you’ve automatically cultivated the capability to think critically. So update your expectations, and don’t be surprised when you – or others – can’t seem to think critically.
My advice is to appreciate that powerful thinking requires both measurable time & energy. Thinking gets physical results because it is a physical act. And like any other physical act, it requires physical training in order to achieve excellence in it.
You can think critically – just accept that it requires consistent & deliberate effort on your part. Once you’ve trained yourself and cultivated your capability, capacity, skills & techniques, you’ll find yourself plowing through complex issues & ideas effortlessly.
And that’s when life gets a lot more interesting.