Rene Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” Western civilization was built upon this axiom. Taken as a foundational psychological truth, that implies we are our thoughts.

If you sink into that concept, that suggests that this world is a living hell or heaven depending on the nature of our thoughts. That’s depressing if you think about it and makes you want to curl into a fetal position and suck your thumb.

Since my frontal lobe first came online giving me fully formed rational thoughts as a teenager, I was amazed at this power of the mind. Where did it come from? Am I generating this or is it just an antennae receiving a transmission from somewhere else? Why do I have ‘good’ thoughts and ‘bad’ thoughts? Why do I get down on myself; have an inferiority complex; feel sorry for myself; play the victim; feel unloved and unworthy; am socially awkward; and why do I feel like a pariah?

Where do these feelings and beliefs come from? And, as I’ve gotten older, why haven’t I been able to heal my mind? Am I going to die an immature child in an aged decrepit rotting body? Did God send me here to learn to manage the mind and I died failing the class?

I have attempted many avenues of discovery. One of them was meditation. Meditation taught me that the source of the mind is Being, or pure consciousness. That showed me that the mind is a finite tool but, it didn’t teach me how to use the mind nor did it give me an understanding about where my beliefs came from.

My life has been a hit or miss of setting and attaining my goals. I have had success and learned from my failures. But, there has been no science of precisely how to do it. And, I haven’t been able to overcome nor understand my weaknesses, faults and shortcomings. I have been helpless in many regards.

Frankly, I am sick of it and I have to change. If I die not knowing and achieving victory over the mind then my life has been a failure. It’s not outward accomplishments, fame, and riches that will satisfy me but knowing that I climbed the mountain of the mind and got to the other side.

On the other side of that mountain I’ll find the valley of peace of “I am, therefore I think.”