A Man Is What He Thinks All Day Long - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson was know for so many things insightful and picking his brain, allow me to quote WHEN he said:  A MAN IS WHAT HE THINKS ALL DAY LONG.  BUT to be fair, this train of thought does NOT come from Ralph Waldo Emerson alone.  I'd like to draw a parallelism with Buddhist teachings WHICH, to quote, says:  YOU ARE WHAT YOU ARE, showing and proving just HOW powerful thoughts can actually be as it can indeed influence and dictate the outcomes💚💛💜

Once I came across that mind-body connection, highlighting that indeed there is that CAUSE and EFFECT with both.  Frankly, I can attest to this.  IF you are thinking positive thoughts in your mind,  that will get reflected on the body with an upright posture, a smile on your face, and a general all-round positive demeanour.  And YES, that works conversely as well [and I can attest to that as well]💧💧💧

Try slouching and add frowning to it, WHAT happens next is a giveaway because it will reflect in your overall low mood and add your poor posture to that.  WHAT happens next?  Sad and often depressing thoughts will overwhelm you inside out.  Multiple researches, though, have NOT totally accepted that mind and body connection due to conflicting and inconsistent research findings.  BUT I WON'T wait for a consensus across experts.  Instead, I'll lean on my actual life experiences LIKE those times I was feeling low one day and before I know it, I was feeling depressed NOT until I took a conscious effort to extricate myself from that morass.  That makes me concur when Ralp Waldo Emerson says that A MAN IS WHAT HE THINKGS ALL DAY LONG💥💥💥

Just to share my own 2-cents here.  The other way in WHICH I tried to improve my mood [even with the least efforts exerted] was through making myself look and feel good and that could mean to as simple as being cleanly shaven and my hair groomed [IF NOT styled].  Of course, dressing up smartly are the toppings of your dish OR dessert.  Over time though, before finding these simple techniques to change HOW I thought, I would often be thinking of myself as either pitifully useless OR inadequate enough.  And NO matter WHAT I did OR said to reinforce these beliefs and those comments that I received from others, I would make them fit into my own way of thinking about myself.  Admittedly, there were numerous times WHEN I felt I was utterly useless and in the process of that thinking, I felt I had made myself useless during those times❎❎❎

Our takeaway:  One instance that triggered my realization was this poetic one-liner:  YOU CAN THINK YOU'RE A PORCUPINE ALL DAY BUT YOU WILL NEVER BECOME A PORCUPINE.  The idea behind this statement is that you can think of many and even all things BUT that DOESN'T mean that they are true.  As the sentence goes, just because you think you're a porcupine DOESN'T mean you are one.  Thinking that I was kind of useless DIDN'T necessarily mean that I was that useless.  At the end of the day, I'll always claw back and cling to that old cliche that says LIFE IS WHAT YOU ARE [and that includes your thoughts.  Yes I agree with Ralph Waldon Emerson that A MAN IS WHAT HE THINKS ALL DAY LONG😀😀😀