eliminate your troubles

Look back at your life and do a self-assessment:

How many times has anger propelled you to behave in ways that you later regretted? On how many occasions, you let the alcohol in your system dictate your words, behaviors and actions? How many instances there have been where you’ve let your fears manifest and become real in your life? How many times have you let envy, jealousy, lust or greed take control over you and lead you down a dark path?

We’ve all come across troubles that we could have easily avoided, had we let reason and sense take charge. As an old adage goes, “A stitch in time saves nine.” In other words, prevention is better than cure.

Marcus Aurelius wrote in his journal, “You’ve endured countless troubles — all from not letting your ruling reason do the work it was made for — enough already!”

We humans are blessed with an advanced brain; it’s a privilege that we all have as compared to other beings on this planet. Our brain is designed to separate the meaningful from the meaningless, the important from the senseless. It’s meant to keep a few essential things into perspective and filter and fade out the rest. We need to put it to use and capitalize on its power to focus — to only pay attention to things that are worth being troubled about and let go of the junk. It’s a constant discipline that we need to practice but if we commit to it, more than 90% of our troubles will simply go away.