“A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.”
— Marcus Aurelius
Fire is a tricky element. If used correctly, it can give life to the things around it. We use it to cook nutritious food for our bodies. We use fire to generate light, for countless different reasons, as well as heat, which we can use to forge tools.
However, as useful as fire is, it can easily be misused. Fire is life, but it can just as easily be death and destruction.
This brings us back to our quote. Fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it. The same applies to our minds. If we throw negative thoughts into our heads all the time, then we’re going to make a flame of negativity that spreads elsewhere. However, if we throw positive things into our heads all the time, the opposite effect happens. Put simply; the mind multiplies whatever you think about all day every day.
That being said, the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. It can be a very dark, nasty place that beats you to a pulp and keeps kicking you until every bone in your body is shattered. To pretend that the world isn’t capable of doing that would be foolish — stupid even. However, we can combat this fact by feeding ourselves positivity. The world might be cruel, but if we only ever focus on the cruel parts, that’s all we’ll ever see. In fact, the idea behind most religions is to help us open up our minds to the possibilities that await. The key to keeping yourself from falling and breaking down is to keep your eyes peeled for positivity. We see this in war when soldiers hold on to hope and keep pushing for victory. Some of the best stories are only possible because someone held on to hope.
It’s important for us to understand that we all contribute to other people’s fires with every move we make. The words we say are important, and they make an impact on other people’s thoughts, opinions, and feelings. That being said, our thoughts, opinions, and feelings can be impacted as well. Other people can use their words to hurl doubt, fear, stress, hate, confusion, anxiety, and more at you. Because of this, it’s important to stand guard over your fire. Those negative things that people try to make you feel need to be stopped at the door. In fact, it’s best to not entertain those thoughts at all. In a previous post I used the analogy of a five year old hitting you and screaming at you. Giving that five year old any attention for his actions only fuels him more. The same applies to negative emotions; give them any attention, and they’ll only multiply.
Of course, it’s difficult to maintain this mentality all the time. You can’t always be happy, because then you’ll block out all the other emotions that humans have the capability of feeling. The best thing you can do is accept your stance, and accept that you don’t feel good. Acceptance is the only way to move through your current position.
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