With the advent of electronic devises, privacy isn’t what it was just a couple of decades ago. That of course has pros and cons, and that’s another topic for another day.
It’s lovely that there is still one area that I believe is going to stay private: what we are thinking at any moment. You never really know what kind of commentary another person is running. You always know what you’re thinking.
Regardless of what’s going on in our outer world, we all are free to think what we want. We can go to prison for our spoken and written words and actions, but not for our thoughts.
When I’m walking down the street, I can think judgmental thoughts or kind thoughts about both myself and others. And since I’m not a mind reader, sometimes it is a fun exercise to guess what someone might be thinking at any given moment.
The guy in a suit is worrying about what to give his wife as a peace offering for being such a jerk the night before. The gal getting a coffee is thinking about reporting her boss for his unwanted sexual advancements. That family is on vacation from Mars and can’t quite get what’s going on here on planet earth. A young man is concerned for his mother’s health. The teen is wondering what she’s doing hanging out with friends on State Street. The balding pot-belly man is replaying the football highlights. A baby is mad because his parents are not giving him a piece of pizza. The beautiful college co-ed is beating herself up for not being more pretty. That single mom is wondering how she’ll feed her children tonight.
What happens when I do this little exercise is that I remember I have no clue about who and what others are, besides a fallible and fragile human being like myself. And since I’m a nice person who attempts to view myself in a favorable light, I know that I must extend the same courtesy to people I meet.
Thinking comes with an incredible responsibility because we create how we feel, speak, and do by what we think. According to Attitude Reconstruction, and according to me, if I want to feel good, I need to entertain thoughts that honor myself and that are accepting of other people. I need to keep tabs on my thoughts and just enjoy breathing in air and taking in the miraculousness of being a human being.
