I read a study which estimates that a person has somewhere around 60,000 thoughts each day and that 95% of them are the same thoughts they had yesterday.
It's the breath. Pay attention to that breath. It's a great anchor and it's one thing that we share with every living creature on the planet. When one of those 60,000 tedious, repetitive thoughts pop into my mind I try to remember to say: "Huh. Look at that thought" and then refocus my attention back onto the next thought. I try to remember that this is perfectly normal, that my brain has the ability to think and it's going to do it and it is not at all pleased that I'm trying to reestablish some semblance of control over its desire to return to tedious, repetitive, self-involved thoughts. It's frustrating enough that most of what I'm thinking about is crap but to make matters worse it's the same crap I thought about yesterday. I can't even come up with any new crap to think about.
One of my eternal loops of thinking is to remember that there is a rhyme and reason to my thinking, that it keeps me safe and it helps me stay prepared for what's going to come next. That's well and good. My problem is that the preparation mostly involves worry and planning about illogical and implausible things. I have enough food. I have a dry, warm, comfortable place to live. I have friends and family and lots and lots of conveniences. Nothing to see here, folks, move along. So where does my mind go? Garbage Bag Guy! Hot Tub Guy! Boat Guy! Okay, okay, Garbage Bag Guy and Boat Guy are the same guy but it sounds better to have three guys to be pissed at instead of just two guys.
What can I tell you? There are a lot of irritating guys out there.
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