Sometimes it feels like my brain is a tangled ball of snakes. My thoughts all wiggle and squiggle together. It is hard to know which thought to grab. Several years ago, I read an article (I don't remember where) that listed the symptoms of ADD. I remember telling Delia that I had 9 out of the 10 symptoms. I would describe my mental life in simple terms: distracted, unfocused, squirrel. Okay, that last one was a joke.
There is something beautiful about a mind that make a dozen different connections in a matter of milliseconds. There is a kind of poetic fluidity to thoughts that intersect along your brain's neuro-pathways. A thought is introduced, a connection made, and bang the wheels of your mind are whirling at the speed of light and in a matter of moments you have traversed the span of the universe of your mind.
The downside of making multiple connections in rapid succession is that it is easy to get lost in the shuffle. It is frustrating when a conversation causes your brain to take a turn, and another, and another, and so on, only to find yourself unable to remember what you were talking about in the first place. Sometimes I find myself on the far side of the universe of my mind, and I can't remember how I got there or how to get back.
I have given up on taming the beast. I'm not certain the human mind should be one tracked. It is helpful, at times, to be able to zero in on one thing--a project, a task, a conversation--but the mind seems designed to process multiple things at once (hearing, seeing, etc.). The mind seems geared to interact with and react to information. It might be detrimental to become overly focused.
While I don't think I can tame my mind, I am certain that I can train it. I have been training it for years. For example, I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, even though the films are about three hours long (the extended versions are even longer . . . and better). However, watching 15 minutes of the news grates my nerves. I can't think of a time when I watched the news without thinking: "Why would anyone watch this?". My point is watching a three hour movie should be harder to do than watching a 30 minute news program, but it isn't in my mind.
One of the keys to training a mind is to connect what your doing to what you value. To put it another way: do what you love and love what you do. Staying focused during a conversation may be naturally difficult to you, but consider the person to whom you are talking. Are you showing them care and respect? Are you learning something new? How is going to move you closer to your goals? Will it reinforce your values?
Meditation is also important. I don't mean the empty-your-mind so often reference in our culture. I mean the biblical kind in which you fill your mind with things worthy of thinking about. While it certainly includes Scripture, Philippians 4:8 seems to widen the scope of our meditation.
The next time someone or something starts moving through the briar patch of your mind and flushes out a rabbit, observe it for a moment. If it is worthy of thought, chase it. It has been my experience that God will use a stray thought to draw us closer to him. However, I should warn you that the devil uses stray thoughts, too. How do we know the difference? Why not spend some time thinking through and praying over Philippians 4:8. It is a great place to start.
I have heard that there are some animals that can't be domesticated. I think the mind should be in the category. You can train a tiger or a lion to do tricks, but at the end of the day they are still not tamed. Train your mind so that it can perform at the crack of the whip (that is, when it is necessary), but don't worry that it isn't tame. It might just be wild by design.
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