Photo by Rebe Pascual on Unsplash
Have you ever considered that to your mind, learning is input, and action is output? What you put into your mind has the potential to create something out of it.
For example, we learn from others and experiences, which are input into our mind. Our mind then processes and makes sense of what we have learned. When we act on what we have learned, we create something in the world.
You can write this sequentially as - input learning, process, output action to create. This pattern exists in everyone's life.
For example, as a writer, I use the input of years of accumulated knowledge gained from others, books, experience, education, and such, to make sense of it all in my mind. I then take action and create an essay, article, book, social media post, penning something in my journal, or some other form of writing. In the end, the input to my mind conceives an idea or thought. The idea or thought births into something tangible through action.
This pattern is so common it is everywhere in life. If the pattern is true, which it is, it raises our awareness that what we allow to enter our mind can result in an action that will create something. This begs the question, "What am I allowing to enter my mind, and what are my actions creating?"
What is your food for thought?
What are you feeding your mind with each day? Are you feeding it with new things that open your mind and expand your thinking? Are you feeding it with positive thoughts? Are you feeding it with things that will make a difference in your life?
"Your future is only as bright as your mind is open." Rich Wilkins
There are few fundamental choices to make with what you allow in your mind. You can feed your mind with negative, neutral, or positive things, each of which inputs something bad, indifferent, or good.
For example, I made the conscious decision about a year ago to reduce watching and listening to negative information sources drastically. How was I allowing it to enter my mind? Via the news, talk radio, social media, politics, and other sensationalistic sources. Why would I continue to allow someone or something else to upset me when I could simply choose not to listen to or watch their nonsense?
There is so much content available in today's world you can binge-watch, listen to, or read from countless negative and positive sources. So why not choose what is better for your mind and health? Yet, some of us thrive on sensationalism and enjoy the negative. Why would one allow that?
"I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet." Mahatma Gandhi
Instead of allowing the negative to feed my mind, I now choose 95+% positive, which is nearly 100% good for my mind! I do allow for some regular television programming, what I refer to as bubblegum for the brain, but only in limited amounts.
I choose and prefer to feed my mind with sources that are uplifting, inspiring, knowledge building, or that otherwise create positivity in my life. These sources include good books, selected videos from YouTube, TED, and other sources, some excellent podcasts, music, and articles written by some of the many excellent authors on such platforms as Medium.
What result are you creating?
From the last few paragraphs, you can see what I was creating in my life and how it has shifted. When I was consuming so much sensationalistic news and talk radio, it produced stress to the point that it affected my health. I had ignored the fact that I could choose not to watch or listen to it and change what it was creating in my mind. This input kept me in a state of addiction to the negative. What I was allowing as input in my mind produced far too much stress in my life. Not a good thing!
"The more you feed your mind with positive thoughts, the more you can attract great things into your life." Roy Bennett
Since I took control and drastically reduced the amount of this negative fodder and began feeding my mind the positive, I am now putting that input in my mind into action through my writing. I have continued publishing an article a day for the past year almost without fail! This is my 354th consecutive article! Not only am I enjoying life far more, but I love making better use of my time, creating something new each day!
Final words
I ask you to look at what you are allowing to enter your mind. Pay attention to the sources of input and constantly ask yourself about each source, "What is its effect on me?"
I adjure you to make a conscious decision to find all the positive, uplifting, knowledge-building sources of input you can to feed your mind.
What you put in will determine what you get out. As the old computer and mathematics saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. Nothing could be truer for the 3-pound "computer" in your cranium we call the brain.
I leave you with some words from a nationally renowned economist who lived early in the last century. Take his words to heart. They are as true today as they were more than 100 years ago.
"The inlet of a man's mind is what he learns; the outlet is what he accomplishes. If his mind is not fed by a continued supply of new ideas which he puts to work with purpose, and if there is no outlet in action, his mind becomes stagnant. Such a mind is a danger to the individual who owns it and is useless to the community." Jeremiah W. Jenks
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