World seems to promote random thinking and remembering; but that actually demotes you!

Pick up popular articles on personality development. One of the traits they encourage you to develop is to entertain random thoughts for innovativeness and creativity. Mentors or coaches would surmise that uncontrolled thoughts are pre-requisite to out-of-box thinking!

Godmen, gurus and preachers would exhort you to keep god’s name on your tongue and picturize him in your mind throughout the day.

We love to remember who are dear to us repeatedly, even when we are engaged in our work. Those, who hurt us or we are biased against, never go away from our mind. We feel compelled to recall images of our role models all the time. Things we are passionate about, are just hooked in our imagination. In the name of dedication and diligence, scientists, researchers or technocrats eat, drink and dream their work.

Do such random thoughts and remembrances help or hurt?

Implications of random thinking and remembering

  1. Thoughts for who you love
    It is most fascinating to keep thoughts in mind for who you love – your spouse, children or friend/s. You keep thinking repetitively how much you love them or how much they love you.
    What you don’t seem to notice is:

    1. Does repeat thinking of love enhances or endangers it?
      Studies have shown it slowly turns into obsession or revulsion!
    2. It builds up your expectations from who you love. When expectations are not met, you feel disenchanted.
    3. You tend to compare who you love more and who less, as also keep a watch on your loved ones, thereby encouraging a conflict in mind. 
    4. If your loved ones have committed mistake or misbehaved with you, your random thoughts exaggerate same.
    5. Your love could turn into lust.
    6. You tend to find flaws with loved one and that sows seed to grow your biases.
      This is how most relationships come on the rock!
  2. Thoughts for whom you respect
    There is a notion developed by most us albeit without noticing it that people we respect should be remembered frequently. Implications are:

    1. Your personality would be overshadowed by who you respect and develop a kind of blind faith in him/her.
      If he/she does good to you, you would be extra grateful; but, if he/she does wrong, you would gloss over. This is your big gaffe!
    2. Because of your respect, you would tend to suppress your feelings or dissent with the person.
    3. When your faith that the person is flawless fractures, you would be crest fallen and drift away from him/her furiously!
  3. Remembering god randomly
    We all believe that remembering god randomly and most time does good to us.

    1. What do you do by remembering god randomly – recall his image, offer prayers or gratefulness or ask for favors? You can either do it casually or seriously. If you are doing it casually, your faith is actually superficial and doing it seriously has always selfish motives attached.
    2. When you make god privy to your work, you set your expectations on him to give you results, regardless of qualitative aspect. Is not it hypocrisy?
    3. God is too great to get a credit from you; but you would conveniently discredit him for your distress or ills! 
  4. Remembering your bête noire!
    This is most easily done! Like it or not, your rivals or baiters occupy maximum space in your mind. You think randomly against whom you are biased and keep building your negative emotions. You would rarely think of them for a right purpose – align with or win over them!
  5. Random thoughts for creativity
    Common conviction is creativity needs random thoughts. But that is only partly true.
    If you think thousand different things, some are bound to be creative or off-beat. But, what we are not thinking is how much time, energy and efforts are required to think those thousand things. Is there is an easier and effective way?
    There is indeed one – your mind is most creative, when it is fully focused and has no conflict of thoughts! 

A careful thought on above would reveal that random thought/remembering promotes prejudices, pessimism, egotism, obsession or depression. It is also a huge distraction.

Thinking or remembering for a right or rational reason!

No doubt, everyone thinks or remember things for a reason; but what is regressive is mixing it with too much of random thoughts. Usual chore is – it is harmless! No, research has revealed that it is quite harmful and hurts your mental and even physical being, apart from maladies mentioned above!

When you evoke your thoughts and memories for love, respect, faith or beliefs for a right or rational reason, their value enhances and you actually take them to elevated level. If you do same randomly without purpose, you grope in past and goof in present. Your productivity, creativity and innovativeness are at peak, when you think and remember just for a rational reason!

Dropping random thinking is not easy; but practice and focused mind would minimize it. Reminding yourself regularly that random thinking creates huge problems over time would dissuade you from same. 

Thinking for a right reason means – when there is occasion to express your love to the loved one, you do it consciously and with no inhibition. Bring respect by heart when you deal with respected ones. When someone is in pains or trouble, don’t get mired in repeated thinking over his/her state. Think consciously how you can help alleviate his/her problems and provide that help; otherwise just have kind feelings for that person and stop. When it comes to work or developing innovative ideas, think and concentrate only when you are on it and not haphazardly. As regards god, be clear why and when you want to remember – want to offer prayers, do that but don’t couple that with random thoughts of ulterior motives. Expecting anything from god makes it a wrong reason to remember him!

So, thinking and remembering things for a right reason help you realize your true potential and save huge energy, which you spend unknowingly, on irrational, inefficient and inert thoughts!

Comments

4 responses to “World seems to promote random thinking and remembering; but that actually demotes you!”

  1. Murli Avatar
    Murli

    Transferred from LinkedIn

    Satyendra Patil Very helpful article as always !! Thank you for sharing your enriching thoughts …

    1. Murli Avatar

      I am very thankful to you for your precious and admirable views!

  2. Rudra Avatar
    Rudra

    So to recapitulate, is it fair to say that we should control our thinking, always? Control what to think and what not to (if that’s feasible)?

    But I have experienced that random thoughts and commemorations are sometimes not worth it!!

    Thanks for sharing… 🙂

    1. Murli Avatar

      Many thanks for your thoughtful views and sharing your experience!

      Random thoughts or remembrances are consequence of uncontrolled mind. But, mind is one, which does not function well through commands and controls. You need to condition (practice) your mind why think what does not help and instead hurts. Practice and practice to think what is relevant, has a right reason or is rational in the present context. This can make you very efficient and effective.

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