How to change a life

Change is an essential part of life and our bodies change whether we want them to or not. The environment around us will change for better or worse, but change is necessary part of life and all of us may have had to change something in our life for the better. Thoughts, feelings, and habits can have either good or bad effects on our lives based on outlook on life. So many things in life can be affected by our outlook on the things that go on in our life. A negative outlook in will cause you to look at things in a more pessimistic and cynical ways. When you do not have a positive mind you tend not to give everything around you a fair chance and this will cause suffering. Without a positive outlook one would tend do things either half- halfheartedly or begrudgingly. A repeating pattern of negative thoughts, defeatist thoughts, and self-destructive habits can often been seen all around us in society today with everyone vying for the top spot in this capitalist market. We are only ok when we are the best and able to claim superiority over the feats of all of our peers. If not, we are failures that have to find some way to get back in that top spot. This is a bad habit followed by many western kids as they grow up and equate their self-worth achievements. Bad habits can be very hard to break because sometimes we are not even necessarily aware we are engaging in bad habits, thinking negative thoughts, and experiencing detrimental feelings. But, even when we are aware it still can be very difficult. More often than not addicts don’t want to be hooked on drugs yet their stuck in a vicious cycle. It’s not easy to change. I've seen people try to change for the better for the remainder of their lives not succeed. But change is definitely attainable with a strong will and a positive outlook.

Change starts with the popular idiom ‘you are what you eat’, and I’m not talking about just what you literally eat or ingest but everything that you take into your body. Not just food and drink, but ideas values and philosophies that you can take in from your surrounding environment.   “Every time we ingest toxins into our consciousness, it is like stabbing ourselves with three hundred sharp knives,”(37) This quote by Thich Nhat Hanh’s “The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching” further presses the point if we intake negative things and harbor them as negative thoughts and feelings and manifest them as bad habits it will be destructive and only increase your suffering for you and everyone else involved in your life. One way that I have personally put this into use is when I was younger (about the age of 9) I was very conscious of everything around that could influence me. Once I decided what had a positive influence and what had a negative influence, I increased my intake of what I considered good and shut out everything that I considered bad. The noticeable change I experienced was how I differed from my peers. I use to be a lot more like them, a lot of them weren't growing up in the best neighborhoods so they didn't always do the right thing. For the most part I wasn’t a bad kid and never did anything exceedingly bad like they did (steal, jump, etc..), but my vernacular use to resemble theirs a lot. If you don’t get it by now I’m saying I use to curse a lot as a kid. But once I became aware of everything around and started to have the right mindfulness about with a positive outlook on life, not only did I stop cursing, I also became a more wholesome person. “We see clearly that real happiness is possible if we can stop ingesting the nutriments that cause us to suffer.”(38)

Another way to change thought patterns is to ‘change the peg’ according to Hanh. This concept is about the upkeep of your own mental environment to make sure you never get worn down by troubles of this world.  “…just as a carpenter replaces a rotten peg by hammering in a new one. If we are constantly assailed by unwholesome patterns of thought, we need to learn how to change the peg and replace those patterns with wholesome thoughts (62).” If I ever have unwholesome thoughts I try to replace them with something wholesome or positive so I don’t get disconcerted. One example of this teaching be applied is whenever I get stressed for a big test or race or anything that requires my best performance, I always think about what I am thankful for in my life and that usually helps me to calm down a bit. Another teaching by discussed by Hanh is ‘Selective watering’. We all have seeds of goodness and badness inside all of us. When we engage in selective watering we determine what seed the most worthy of our attention so it can grow to be something that will have more prevalent in our lives. We should foster good traits so grow more as earnest people and contribute to the cessation of suffering. An example of me doing this in my life in particular was going to church every week. I learned values and had them reinforced to become the person I am today.

A positive outlook and right mindfulness is critical to bring about positive changes in our lives. Without these we would not be able to change for the better. There are many struggles in our lives that may be difficult to deal with, but we have all the tools we need to make a change and make a difference to the world around you.

Citation:

        Nhá̂t, Hạnh. The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy & Liberation : The Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and Other Basic Buddhist Teachings. New York: Broadway, 1999. Print.