Be Flexible in Your Thinking

 

I have to keep an open mind otherwise I set myself up for disaster. I have learned this from my 12 Step programs. It is part of the open mind, willing and honesty that we include in it. My problem often is my thinking. I can get into so much negative stuff and I have to bring into consciousness that I have good things going on too. 

Today's Reading comes from  The Rules of Life

Be flexible in your  thinking  Once your thinking gets crystallized, rigid, formed, you’ve lost  the battle. 

Once you think you have all the answers, you might as  well hang up your boots. Once you get set in your ways, you’re  already part of history.  To get the most out of life you have to keep all your options open,  keep your thinking and life flexible. You have to be ready to roll  as the storm breaks–and by gosh it always breaks when you least  expect it. The instant you are established in a set pattern, you  set yourself up for being knocked off-course. You might need to  examine your thinking pretty closely to understand what I mean.  Flexible thinking is a bit like mental martial arts–being ready to  duck and weave, dodge and flow. Try to see life not as the enemy,  but as a friendly sparring partner. If you are flexible you’ll have  fun. If you stand your ground you’re likely to get knocked about  a bit.  

We all have set patterns in life. We like to label ourselves as this  or that and are quite proud of our opinions and beliefs. We all  like to read a set paper, watch the same sorts of TV programmes  or movies, go to the same sort of shops every time, eat the sort  of food that suits us, wear the same type of clothes. And all this  is fine. But if we cut ourselves off from all other possibilities, we  become boring, rigid, hardened–and thus likely to get knocked  about a bit.  You have to see life as a series of adventures. Each adventure is a  chance to have fun, learn something, explore the world, expand  your circle of friends and experience, and broaden your horizons.  Shutting down to adventure means exactly that–you are shut  down. 

The second you are offered an opportunity to have an adventure,  to change your thinking, to step outside of yourself, go for it and  see what happens. If this thought scares you, remember that you  can always go back into your shell the second it’s over, if you  want to.  But even saying yes to every opportunity isn’t set in stone as a  rule, because that would be inflexible. The really flexible thinkers  know when to say no as well as when to say yes.  If you want to know how flexible your thinking is, here are a  couple of tests. Are the books by the side of your bed the same  sorts of books you’ve always read? Have you found yourself saying  anything like ‘I don’t know any people like that’ or ‘I don’t go to  those kind of places’? If so, then perhaps it’s time to broaden your  mind and take the shackles off your thinking.