Good Fruit Against Sour Thoughts

"Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit – and man is his own gardener." --John Leonard

I once heard that all action is born in thought. I suppose this to mean all bad actions then start in bad thoughts, as well as all good actions come from good thoughts. In a goal towards serenity and peace, why would someone then want think bad thoughts if they led to negative actions? Then one could argue, "what is bad and negative"? I think those are self defined by the individual themself, their family of origin, and the society they belong to. Of course, the legal system has more defined terms of good or bad. What would be bad in my mind could be good in someone else mind. I suppose it would come down to what behavior one would like to change or an action they would like to prevent. This in itself could go down a rabbit hole of a conversation about mindfulness that I won't attempt to approach in a simple blog today. In theory, one could work on changing thoughts to good thoughts. This in turn could promote good actions (by their own definition). Therefore, when would this ongoing progress of good thoughts and good actions become good habits? According to Aristotle, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit". No one living is perfect, so let's face it, we all have good and bad habits. Some we like and some want to change. I wonder if we could just do away with the word 'bad'. The word itself stirs up emotions from childhood and could send one into a spiral of internal rebellion. For now, for me, I think I will work on stopping myself with what I define as a 'bad' thought and change it into something more 'good'. Perhaps that loud obnoxious person at the store isn't annoying, they're just not pleasing to listen to at this moment. Perhaps that crazy disrespectful driver that cut in front of me isn't the bad word I want to say, but perhaps an individual having a stressful day that is merely getting to their destination the safest way they know how. I think the point here for me is to realize that other people are not causality of my bad thoughts, my negative thoughts are my own creation.

Back in the blog

As many of you know, I started graduate school in January. At 41 years old, this is not exactly an easy task as there is only one 'older than me' person in a class I am taking. That individual is in a PhD program and appears to be well adjusted. Why should age matter in social settings? Well, it matters because my belief is that most humans by existence, particularly this human (me), craves connection, comfort, and validation. I have heard many people say, "I don't need others to feel validated", but often I feel this statement isn't true for everyone. For me, I have this internal need to feel accepted and a part of, a form of validation in my opinion. Now, I realize I'm in school for a reason which is to merely learn and further my education. That reason is and should always be the main focus, although creating new friends and networks should also happen. Humans by nature thrive in collaboration. Often, it is difficult to connect with people that are of an age that could be my children. Sometimes, I wonder if they view me as their parents group, or as their peer. I view them as my peer and always respect them as a peer, but my previous experience with peers at work or social settings are with people in my own age group. Now, I am not about to attempt to be anything different than who I am, but where does comprise play a role? It creates a fine line of possibly subscribing to something that is not me. To be frankly honest, I need to give some liberty, this is only the end of the second month of classes. I am sure there are many of any age just starting a new school have felt this type of feeling described as partly loneliness and partly ineptness. For now, I will continue to be true to myself and respectful to my peers, and then those that do come into my life will be blessings to further my education in the course called 'life'.