We Are What We Think
The words of Emerson’ suggest there is something stronger than material force – something more than just what we can see and feel and smell and touch. Thoughts rule the world, indeed, mankind. “We are what we think,” is a common saying. Thoughts, it seems, are the starting place for all that ever has been.
Did not the Creator make the mind the most complex and intricate part of this amazing machine we call a body? In fact, so complex is the mind that it alone can control the rest of the human soul – even to the degree of eliminating pain, causing illness, telling us things are true when they are not – even to the point where we believe them.
“As [a man] … thinketh, … so is he,”2 say the scriptures. Why, then, let ourselves be dragged down by thinking degrading thoughts? “Think on pleasant things,” said one. “Deliberately turn your thoughts to something pleasant when the pressures are too tense. And be careful, as undisciplined thought quickly sifts back to the unhappy, unsettled mind.”3
George Bernard Shaw said, ” … a pessimist is a man who thinks everybody as nasty as himself …”4 Cannot the opposite be true – an optimist is a man who thinks everybody as happy as himself? Imperfect thoughts, like unsavory characters, can come to anyone’s door; but we don’t have to let them in. How much better it is to have pleasant, loving, wholesome, productive thoughts.
“Habit is a cable,” said Horace Mann. “We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.”5 Should we not begin today to weave a habit of thinking good thoughts, of keeping our minds clear of thoughts that will pull us down to depths of despair? If we think a good thought now, next time it will be that much easier. If we are to become honest, pure, lovely, virtuous, and praiseworthy, then we must – as Paul wrote – “think on these things.”6
1Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: Progress of Culture
2Qld Testament, Proverbs 23:7
3Joyce Rifler, Think on These Things, p. 69
4George Bernard Shaw, An Unsocial Socialist, ch.
5 ”Horace Mann (1796-1859), Am. educator
6New Testament, Philippians 4:8
February 27, 1972
Broadcast Number 2,214