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