YOUR MIND IS A GARDEN
A story is told of American sailors who travelled to China and on their arrival they came across a Chinese tattoo shop. Out of curiosity they decided to walk inside the shop and came across a tattoo written “BORN TO FAIL”. One of the sailors asked the Chinese shop attendant loudly “DO PEOPLE TATOO THIS ON THEIR BODY?”. The male Chinese shop attendant responded in a broken English and said “YES, BEFORE TATTOOED ON THE BODY, TATTOOED IN THE MIND”.
His response immediately reminded me of Gilbert, 5feet 4inches, moderately pigmented brown skin, soft spoken, 38 years of age, a father of one, husband, go getter, an outgoing person, a life of the party, a civil engineer by profession.
Gilbert is a land owner, property owner, an entrepreneur, a sought after civil engineer having worked with different governmental and non-governmental organizations. I believe if you had an opportunity to meet Gilbert and see the type of work he has done over the years, you would not hesitate to offer him a new contract if and when in a position to.
Dear reader, it doesn’t matter what l tell you about Gilbert, his accomplishments, his persona, his work, his social capital notwithstanding, Gilbert describes himself as a failure and late bloomer.
Much like you and l it doesn’t matter the accomplishments, milestones or steps we have achieved in life. The picture tattooed in our mind blinds us to what we see.
It may seem impossible to choose good thoughts when negative ones seem to infiltrate and take over your thoughts. As the Chinese shop attendant said, before anything is tattooed on your body it is first tattooed in your mind.
Your mind will constantly draw-out imaginary conversations: “I am this, l am that. He is intelligent, I am not, if he said this, I would say that…” with absolutely no outcome.
What you plant in the garden of your mind is what you will harvest. If you want to harvest positive results and attitude you must plant the right thoughts: Your only obligation is to change the channel whenever negative imaginary conversations come across your mind.
“Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are seeds, you can grow flowers or weeds”. –Osho-
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