Think Like A Poet

I keep staring at the computer screen and all that will come to me? "Tiger, Tiger, burning bright..." And visions of Junior year at the BY are dancing through my head, and I cannot remember for the life of me the author of that poem or the professor's class I was sitting in when I first discovered it. Was it by William Blake, and wait, did he spell tiger like tyger? I remember some funky spelling somewhere. Or am I mixing up poems? Or was my professor named William Blake? (Haha, just kidding. He was not named William Blake. I'm not crazy. Just the random night time weariness as I sit here typing with my eyes closed and thinking about sleep.)

Anyway, so thinking like a poet. Poets are deep souls, or at least that is what we tell ourselves, and I feel like lately I've been a poet because I've been thinking all these deep thoughts and writing about said deep thoughts here. Right here in a public forum. And poets write for a public but no one reads poetry anymore. So they sit there in anthologies studied by English majors and then they go forgotten on some shelf. So that one day, said English major can try and try with all her might to remember what it was that she learned when she read that poem about a tyger that was burning bright. Do I even have the right words for that poem? I do not know! It's sort of distressing me right now.

And no one is reading my blog. I've not really been letting the word out about this little daily expression of my thoughts out there.

So I'm sort of like a poet in some ways myself.

Where was I going with all this? Oh yes, so deep thoughts.

So my deep thought today is thus: why is it so hard to change thinking patterns? I'm working really hard on positive karma and such. But I have some habitual bad thoughts.

1. I imagine some future scenario where I am trying to communicate with a person and it isn't going well, and I have to make them see why I am right. I think I do it because I'm anticipating a conversation I am going to have to have with someone at some point in time. And I'm feeling nervous about it. I'm worried that it won't go well, so I imagine the worse case scenario instead of trying to see it going just as I would like it to. It makes me feel like I'm one of "those" people who always anticipates the worst. YUCK! I don't want to do that.

2. I think unkind thoughts about my body. They pop into my head without me even realizing it. It's HORRID! I do not want these thoughts anymore. Really really really. I'm so tired of them. They are no longer welcome in my mind! (As if they were ever welcome...but habit, peeps, habit.)

3. I get so impatient when I am driving and I find myself having to remind myself that it isn't life or death and I'm not driving: a police squad car while I chase down a car thief; an ambulance with a triage patient who is about to die; a pregnant lady who is about to give birth. Do I really need to be so mad at people while I'm out on the road?

You get the idea. So how does one go about changing such habits? Hmmmm??? Diligent monitoring of said thoughts? Replacing said thoughts with positive ones while continually diligently moderating said thoughts? It's hard. It's really hard to think about what you are thinking about. Some things just pop into your head without you even thinking about it. And then you have to correct said thought...if you are even paying attention enough. Do you see what I'm getting at here? I think this is a valid point.

But maybe that is just me saying I don't know if I can do a hard thing. But I CAN do a hard thing. It takes effort and practice and I can do that. Make effort and practice. I can do hard things!

See how I think so deeply...just like a poet!