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In their book Break Through, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger write: “The future is not destined to be dark or bright, fallen or triumphant. Rather, the future is open.” The emphasis on the word “open” is theirs, and every time I read it, I shiver just a little. It’s a powerful word in a powerful sentence. Open. Not destined, not predictable, not fated. Open. Ours to create.
When I read these words I realized that my attitude, and yours, matter. Our optimism and hope drive the open future. And so do our pessimism and cynicism.
We can choose our attitude — not completely, not without the influence of our emotions — but through our will and our effort, we can choose to embrace optimism and hope. And that choice then influences our behaviors, leading us toward the creation of a better future. If we choose cynicism or pessimism instead, whether to protect ourselves from disappointment or absolve ourselves from responsibility for the open future, we generally fail to bring about the future we actually want. The choice is up to us.
Mahatma Gandhi wrote:
Our beliefs become our thoughts,
Our thoughts become our actions,
Our actions become our habits,
Our habits become our character,
Our character becomes our destiny.
If we believe in our power to bring about a better future, such a future will follow.
~ Zoe
Filed under: MOGO (Most Good), positive choices | Tagged: Break Through, future, hope, optimism, positive choices
The future is not “open.”
The future will be Edenic peace because you will choose to be the Edenic peace.
The future is Edenic peace because you are choosing to be the Edenic peace.
The present is Edenic peace because you are choosing to be the Edenic peace.
Zoe Weil wrote:
Mahatma Gandhi wrote:
Our beliefs become our thoughts,
Our thoughts become our actions,
Our actions become our habits,
Our habits become our character,
Our character becomes our destiny.
In Waking Up To What You Do, Diane Eshin Rizzetto quoted the Buddha from the Dhammapada:
The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And the habit into character.
So, watch the thought and its way with care
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all Beings.
As the shadow follows the body,
As we think, so we become.
This is the lesson I learned in news writing. Whatever we focused on intensified. When we focused on bombings, focusing on the bombings increased the number of bombings, and ignoring them calmed people down so that there were less bombings because we had shifted our attention onto something which would calm people down and make them think in a peaceable manner, which led to peaceable behavior patterns.
Create the peace inducing thought by choosing to be the peace inducing though.
Create the peace inducing influence by choosing to be the peace inducing influence.
Create the peace inducing stimuli by choosing to be the peace inducing stimuli.
The world is perfect Edenic peace when I choose to be the perfect Edenic peace. We are the real world. We are reality. I am reality. I am the real world. I will never, ever let anyone tell me what “the real world” is like. I am the real world. I am absolute reality. If I want reality to be peaceful, then all I have to do is to choose to create the peace by choosing to be the peace itself. I am the real world. The real world is perfect Edenic peace because I am choosing to be the perfect Edenic peace.