We live in a super-fast world full of deadlines, family , fast food, fast decisions, after-school activities, easily available entertainment, long work hours, rapidly advancing technology, push-buttons, and remote controls. Life runs on high speed, even on our days off. We are readily available via hand-free cell phones, instant messaging, on-line social sites, and e-mail. Most of us exist just one push of a button away from friends, family , co-workers, businesses, and complete strangers.
Seldom is our body truly at rest, and less seldom is our mind at rest or even running slowly enough for us to take note of our thoughts. The human mind is seldom blank, but resembles the race track on which thousands of thoughts a day run. How many of us run on automatic pilot, unaware of a particular thought that may be begging to be noted?
Learning To Capture The Important Thoughts
Most thoughts are meant to be random and fleeting, but other thoughts may well be the answer to an important question, the solution to a burning problem, the gem of an idea that could change life in the best of ways. These latter thoughts are the ones we need to capture, to look at more carefully. Do you recognize the thoughts that are seeds begging to be planted?
1. If you don't already do so, keep a pen and pad handy to capture these gems in disguise.
2. Set aside even a few minutes each day when you are unavailable, even if it is in the bathtub. Let someone else watch the kids, answer the phone, take over the household. During this quieter time to yourself, take particular notes of the thoughts that occur to you. Don't cut them short or over-run them with other thoughts. Let them become fully formed seeds.
3. "Plant" the seed in the soil of a journal or on a scrap of paper. Allow it to sit, to germinate.
4. At some point later in the week, take a look at all the thoughts you've planted.
5. Some you'll throw out. They will have died in the soil. You'll recognize that the seed of an idea would never have bourne fruit. Others, though, will have sprouted. These are the ones you want to take root and grow.
Nurturing A Thought Has Taken Root
If a thought were really a plant about whose growth we cared, we would tend it daily, nurture it with whatever was required for it to mature. So it is with answers to questions, solutions to problems, or a brilliant idea to enhance our life or the lives of others. We allow this plant the proper environment in which to thrive. We go through the necessary steps and stages to ensure its health. We feed it, protect it, encourage it to ripen, to bear fruit.
Harvest Time
The process of recognizing your thought gems, tending them, will yield you a harvest, bear you some fruit. Put the answers to your questions to work, implement the solutions to those problems. Develop that brilliant idea and put it into action. Enjoy the benefits of capturing the gems, the seeds, and allowing them to enhance your life.
Using this article as an outline, fill in the empty places with your unique, specific thoughts and ideas to bring them to fruition.
Karen Chaffe is a published freelance writer, editor, and artist living in a beautiful small town in Michigan. She writes on a variety of subjects, including positivity, health, motivation, and inspiration.