Power of Positive Thinking

            Does positive thinking really change anything? Marcus Aurelius thinks that positive thinking has a lot to do with everything. In Marcus Aurelius’ book “Meditations”, he talks about positive thinking being a thing that can change the way you feel. Marcus Aurelius believes that whatever is happening to you is because of what you are thinking. In meditations, he talks about the mind and how the mind controls how you feel. Marcus Aurelius believes that your thinking can change whether you can reach an achievement or not and also that your thinking can change your mind over pain. In this paper, I am going to talk about the power of positive thinking and what Marcus Aurelius thinks about thoughts.

            Marcus Aurelius believes that if you think that you can reach something, that you will be able to reach it. He believes that anything that is possible if you think you can do it. Marcus Aurelius says, “Do not imagine that, if something is hard for you to achieve, it is therefore impossible for any man: but rather consider anything that is humanly possible and appropriate to lie within your own reach too” (6.19). This means that if something is humanly possible that you should believe that it is possible for you to achieve that goal. Sometimes the difference between achieving something and not achieving it is the way you look at it.  He also said, “ That all is as thinking makes it so - and you control your thinking. So remove your judgments whenever you wish and then there is calm - as the sailor rounding the cape finds smooth and the welcome of a waveless bay” (12.22). Marcus Aurelius was saying that we control our thinking and if we think positively, we will be calm and head towards calm times.

            Marcus Aurelius also believes that if you think something that it is going to be true and if you remove what you think, it will go away. He says, “Remove the judgment, and you have removed the thought ‘I am hurt’: remove the thought ‘I am hurt’, and the the hurt itself is removed” (4.7). Marcus Aurelius is saying that whenever you are hurting, that it is all in your mind and that you are making yourself think that you are hurt. He believes that whenever you are hurting you can take away your thoughts about hurting and then you will take away the hurt. There is also a passage in the Bible that talks about how a man thinks. In the King James Version, there is a verse in Proverbs that says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Both of these passages say that whenever you think something that it is true. Marcus Aurelius believes that whatever you think is what is going to happen to you.

            In conclusion, Marcus Aurelius believes that you should always think the right thoughts and that it can change an outcome. He believes that if you remove a judgment, you can take away that thought and it will not be there any longer. Marcus Aurelius uses the example of pain in the book, Meditations. He says that if you take away the thought of the pain then you will not experience the pain any longer. He also believes that you can reach anything that is possible if you have the right mind set. Marcus Aurelius has a lot of thoughts about the mind and how the mind governs the body. I believe that the mind is a powerful thing and that it can change someone’s outlook on things. These are some of the ways that Marcus Aurelius believes in positive thinking and how you look at things can change your outlook and your outcome.