Maybe it’s just me. Maybe not. But I have great ideas that disappear into the ether almost as soon as they come! Sometimes they come while engaged in other activities where I cannot possibly write them down, and other times they nudge into my thinking spaces and are quickly overwhelmed by other processes.
It happened yesterday. It’s already happened this morning. My suspicion will prove that it will tomorrow, and probably every day I live! A new blog thought, a scriptural thought I just know needs sharing or something to tell my bride! Poof! It comes! Poof! It’s gone!
I’m left with the feeling of disconnection. Was the thought arrival important to share, or was it simply the way a mind works on so many levels?
Capturing The Flag
Have you ever played the game? Capture the Flag? Several teams, each with their own identity and flag representing their “headquarters” and everyone is focused on capturing the flag of each other. The team who is successful wins the game! Everyone else is simply a loser.
When I fail to successfully capture my thought, record it, document it, and cement it into some future study time, then I feel like I’m a loser. I want to win!
Back in the day, I kept pen and paper by the bedside so I could capture those “middle of the night” thoughts. However, I found that I could not read my writing and if I awoke good enough to make good notes then I was up for hours – unable to return to snoozerville (new word I just created!)
You don’t want distracted driving to be the result of loose thoughts flying through your mind, nor at an important meeting where your career or relationship is on the line. Neither do you want to appear to be distracted by others who are gauging whether you fit into their world, or will they lend you money for some purchase you want to make!
How Do You Capture The Flag?
There’s no easy answer. It all depends on those pesky questions every good reporter, storyteller or historian knows to ask: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How!
Besides, you are a unique individual with abilities special to your identity. Your phenomenal memory may be able to capture the thought, file it away in a “to do” location of the mind and recall it when there’s a better time to address the thought. Perhaps you need pen and paper, or an audio recorder, or that assistant standing by at you beck and call. (It’s “beck and call“, not “beckon call”, says the whispered research of Google!)
My Thought Library
Remember it is impossible to keep every thought handy, so you need some mechanism to identify which ones are important enough to collect.
What works for you will not work for others, so learn that mechanism, train yourself to it, and polish it till it shines through every time you need it! Keep that voice recorder handy, pen and paper at your side, or sharpen those memory skills so they will work every single time!
I’m calling this process, “Building My Thought Library“.
Everything you think through in your mind is always there, even when it’s difficult to recall. Have you ever had a good thought, but when you revisited your notes you never felt the same about it as you felt when you jotted them down? Well. My desk if full of these things. At the time the thought made me excited, but I cannot recreate the excitement later on. Give that thought time to take root, find other comparable resources in your library, and someday that thought will bud into action and you will not ever know where the original thought came from!
My kids describe me playing “Trivial Pursuit“, you know, that board game that came into popularity in the early ’80s. I seldom lose. Nor do I like to play the versions of the games that focus on specialized knowledge of some Hollywood show, or theme park data. I want the Whole World of knowledge that comes from my life here in these United States!
“Watch dad. He’s going down the file cabinet row of useless knowledge. There. He’s found the correct cabinet. Will he get the right drawer? Yep. He’s pulling it open and thumbing through all those scraps of paper. Look! He’s found the answer!”
I learned I could not force the answer to appear. It was a process, even if it was moving at quantum speeds!
Quantum Thinking
Perhaps this is the key for all of us. We need to fill our Thought Library with enough clues to the answers we want to respond to, and then simply allow our mind and subconscious the time and space to work it out. Quantum Thinking is my label for this. I can fill the library all day long, but I really need the time to let my mind work it out.
Where do I find the time? Well, that is the question of the day. I’m not a proponent of multitasking or multithreaded thinking. For me, it’s pretty much all my mind working through whatever is before me, and let’s keep the blinders on so distractions do not take me down some Rabbit Trail! Tractor time, anyone? Quiet road hours?
My bride is continually amazed that I can lay down at the end of the day and rapidly drift into REM state. Here’s my secret, from a little snippet of information in my mind.
When I play, I play hard.
And when I work, I work hard.
So, When I lay down, I go to sleep!
Here’s My Thought Today
This happened several days ago, and hence my writing today. I had a beautiful thought to share and it rang sincere in my heart. It was nothing new, only a new way to share. However. Poof! It was gone after several hours of thinking it through. I have failed to capture the flag!
The Apostle Paul tells us to “bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5) Though he’s dealing with the jumble of life that flaunts itself into our identity, this is a valuable consideration for much of life.
“The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.”
~Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
It’s the wisest of all that says, “…as he thinks in his heart, so is he…” (Proverbs 23:7). Again, the writer is focusing on a different thought process, but the excerpt is valuable.
Thinking it Through
Not that I want to go too deep here, but we fill our “Thought Library” with what we allow into our life. If you constantly dwell on negative aspects, and you will become a Negative Quantum Thinker. If you want to be a positive person, then think and store the facts, fill your mind with potential solutions, and let the thinking process mine your library for better results.
Yes. It’s the Power of Positive Thinking, but equally, it’s the Power of Positive Input. If Marcus Aurelius is correct, then your soul is a reflection of what you allow into your Thinking machine!
Be like a magnet! Shun the negative, and grab hold to the positive!
Let your mind be like a magnet. Shun the Negative, Grab hold of the Positive! Now, let you life be lived like that Positive Thinking Machine you are! Click To Tweet