From the Archives: The Impermanence of Our Thoughts

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the concept of impermanence. It gives us a different approach to change. We know everything is in constant movement; nothing is the way it was yesterday. Change is sort of the measurement standard. And change also affects our thoughts.

Thoughts aren’t written on rock. What I want to say with this is that thoughts aren’t laws. They are just thoughts. What you thought in a moment, may change the next. When we understand the impermanence of thoughts, a whole world of opportunity opens up in front of us.

I must confess I’m yet opening that door. It’s a revelation too deep and at the same time so simple. I don’t know if I fully grasp everything it entails, the great decision-making power we have at our disposal. Just imagine, you don’t have to do what your thoughts are telling you to!

It may sound too obvious. You’ll tell me, of course you don’t have to act according to your thoughts. Now I ask you, are you sure you fully understand that statement? I ask because honestly, thoughts govern our lives. The clearest example is when we worry for things we don’t know will happen. Why do we do that? Because of our thoughts, creating and brooding over imaginary scenarios. But, if our thoughts aren’t laws, why do we keep following them? Tricky question.

It’s Thursday afternoon. The following thought pops up into your mind: you don’t feel like training. You come up with a series of “arguments” to make a strong case — like ‘I’m tired,’ ‘work today was intense,’ etc. Once you build the whole case, you are ready to tell yourself the verdict, ‘ok, today I won’t exercise, maybe tomorrow.’

Maybe you were tired, but not necessarily indisposed or lacking the energy to work out. You had a thought. You might have not even realized the whole mental process you went through, all that inner discussion. However, you could have said ‘ok thought, I know you don’t want me to train, but you’re just an idea.’ Next, you go and train. Thoughts aren’t actions, neither laws, and they are impermanent.

The same thing happens with labels. You describe yourself as this or that — lazy, anxious, shy, etc. All those characteristics might be founded on simple thoughts. A given situation comes up and you start yet another mental process telling yourself ‘you can’t do that because you’re a quitter.’ Where’s written that that’s who you are? Where does it say this is your only course of action? Where does it say that you have to act according to the labels that ‘represent’ you?

Thoughts, and one more time, they are impermanent, fleeting. Everything is in our head. We elect them as our president, when they are only advisers — they constitute an idea, an opinion or possibility, but they don’t necessarily have the defining vote.

According to quantic physics, everything is energy. Therefore, our thoughts are energy. Wherever we put our thoughts into, we also put our creative energy into it. The idea that pops up through our thoughts can be created, can become reality. At first, nonetheless, they are just that, thoughts, energy wandering around.

We are defining ourselves and defining our actions based in suppositions, on one hand imaginary, and on the other, impermanent, changing. Then, each of us has the power to choose where we want to direct our energy, what we are going to transform it into. We can make the conscious decision of what to do with those rays of energy or we can let them decide for us.

What is it going to be?