Best Of

has happened many times...
The shy little boy who lives locked up in his room chooses almost by command of his own adolescence the path of the mystical outbreak. It is very common between the ages of 15 and 20. They rarely work or study hard, they have a lot of free time.
And now he has a laptop, a phone and all the networks, so he gets in there and he goes on a rampage. He can google anything and at the same time run around in circles at high speed. Without a teacher or instruction he becomes a missile with no trajectory but will inevitably fall and hurt himself. they ignore the Golden Rule number 1: "don't play with your mind".
Whenever it happens and our paths cross I offer help and rigour. I rarely succeed now, in my middle age and far from my young novice fervour.
I am a foot soldier against a tide of teenagers armed with thousands of theories and megabytes of googled information.
It's a bit sad to see history repeating itself. So much young energy wasted.

I have been taking decaffeinated coffee for quite some time now. And it has made a heck of a difference to both my temperament, and my sleep pattern.
I think I spend too much time on the internet, and could fashion my spare time much better; I refuse to call any habit 'bad' or overlay it with a negative label. That merely serves as self-chastisement or mental 'punishment'. I am not one to have a habit that needs amendment, and then burden myself further by giving it a label that weighs on me further. One thing is bad enough; why embellish it with just more 'badness'...?

We are our own worst enemies. We berate ourselves, and tell ourselves off.
We try to dismiss our foolish thoughts by admonishing our thought patterns..
"Oh come on, don't be silly! Don't think that way, you're putting yourself down, cheer up! Look on the bright side, and get your back into it! Effort, effort, effort!"

That's right, isn't it?

No.
It is not.

Because self-encouragement couched in those terms - is still berating yourself and chastising yourself.
The way to encourage positive thinking, is through positive mental attitude.
"Let's replace that line of thinking with a thought that lets you shine! You have done so well today! You have achieved so much! You have 100% survived every moment of stress and struggle so far! That takes real power and determination! You got this, well done, that's brilliant!"

... Is a much better approach...