“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on your mind. That’s the only thing you should be trying to control.” – Elizabeth Gilbert.

From a very young age my mom has always relayed one constant message to me: attitude is everything. You probably hear it pretty often, the phrase comes up on Pinterest when you’re searching for motivational quotes that will help you get out of bed and go to the gym, and if you’re like me, someone in your life has preached it to you whenever you’re venting about a difficult situation you may be in. Although it may be an overused phrase, I think it’s important to sit back and actually think about what it really means from time to time.

Learning how to control your thoughts is much harder than it sounds, for example: if you’re having one of those days where it just seems like not a single thing is going your way, (let’s say you’re on your way to get ice cream so you can cry and watch Netflix because your boyfriend broke up with you the night before, so naturally you stay up obsessing over it instead of studying for the test you have the next day, causing you to fail and on the way to get your ice cream your car breaks down. One of those days.) you’re not really in the mood to think positively. You want to sit there and ponder aggressively why the universe is personally victimizing you so much at the moment.

Everyone has those kinds of days, but if you choose to deal with the curveballs life throws at you in a constructive way, that’s what will set you apart from the person next to you. With that being said, mastering the art of selecting your thoughts carefully will also help you tremendously when it comes to dealing with the difficult people that will inevitably enter your life. Whether it’s a professor that decides he’s going to give you a C on a paper when you thought you deserved an A, a boss that forces you to complete mind numbing tasks such as coffee runs or stapling papers together for hours on end even though you’re entirely too qualified to be doing such things or just a girl in your friend group that everyone else seems to like but for some reason you really can’t stand. At least one of these people will be in your life at some point. Accepting that, and learning how to deal with them is essential for personal sanity.

Obviously it’s impossible to go through every single day of your life chipper and ready to take on every annoying occurrence that comes your way with no problem. You’re allowed to have bad days, and you’re allowed to let those days affect your mood from time to time. But never let that bad mood become a mindset, because negative thoughts will never lead to a positive life. ~Namaste.~