Happiness - Where Do Our Thoughts Come From? (Part 1)

Where do our thoughts come from—particularly the ones that poison our minds and can sometimes cause us so much trouble?

First and foremost, we make them. It seems that we are born without any preconceived idea in mind. We are supplied with five senses with which we perceive the outside world and, possibly, ourselves included in this world. We are also equipped with a brain with which we make interpretations about what we perceive.

We only have to observe a young child to see how his interpretations are often wrong. For example, children do not feel the fear of real dangers—crossing the street without looking—and yet they show signs of fear in front of harmless objects or persons—a visitor with a gruff voice. Children are pleased beyond measure for trinkets, but they can also cry their heart out about trifles.

We definitely learn very gradually to understand the world around us, to make enlightened judgments about reality, to better discern the real dangers from imaginary ones, and to better evaluate the relative importance of things. Childhood is the age of absolute needs, inconsolable sorrows, uncontrollable fears... to sum it all up: the age of innocence and naivete.

And this is not all. This naive child that we were—whose critical thinking was almost absent—has been, from birth, in contact with adults who were not all necessarily champions of realism. Therefore, from early on, we have seen and heard these adults being angry about anything, uttering unqualified judgments, proclaiming absolutes... in fact, messing around long and often, but not necessarily on purpose. And, most often than not, the prestige that these adults had in our child’s eyes led us to accept without questioning the aberrations expressed or experienced by those around us. For example:

• “My father is the strongest...”
• “My mother is the prettiest...”

Unfortunately, there is often not too much we can do about the environment in which we have lived as a child, the people and the things that surrounded us. On the other hand—and that is great news!—nothing says it is inevitable for us to continue thinking as we have learned from our immediate environment in the early years of our lives.