Out of my mind they came, flowing like waters on a dry arid land
as fast as a blink, they spread across the surface,
invading my self, my whole and my being
till the image of them, I became
and my own, I was no more
I conformed to their command
and I hustled back and forth
as I sought to make sense of their inconsistencies
they varied from peaks to lows,
never quite offering a chance for stability
Today they energetically offered a distorted image of X
tomorrow they sheepishly attempted to damage control
emotions gave them a ride,
and moods were great factors in their speeding or slowing down
I became them
I embodied them
I was them,
unsettled, uncertain, unhappy
It seems a vicious circle;
I am that which I expose myself to – and
what I expose myself to reflects who I am
until I came to realise:
I am not the product of my thoughts
An inanimate object, like a thought
causes neither good, nor harm
unless an animate being, like me,
acts or omits to act on it
I decide what I read
I decide who I associate myself with
I decide what I eat
I decide where I live
I decide how I live
I decide why I do what I do
I decide where I work, study, fellowship
I make decisions on all those factors that contribute to my existence
and even when those decisions are shaped by social, political, environmental, geographical, biological, religious, psychological, emotional, cultural or physical reasons,
I still decide how all the little bits of phenomenon that constitute Life
impact the essence of me
I am powerless when I believe I cannot control my thoughts
I am powerful when I realise what I expose myself to shapes How I think
But I possess the ability to filter through my thoughts,
select, use or discard them as I deem appropriate
when I came to realise that
I am not the product of my thoughts,
I no longer lived as a prisoner of circumstance
but rather studied, mastered and shaped
the circumstances around me,
embracing that which is beyond human control
and cooperating with fate to tailor build my own destiny
