Thoughts And Ideas

I've been reading "The Church Of Irresistible Influence", by Robert Lewis and Rob Wilkins. After a couple of chapters, here's something I'd like to share that I found interesting, "Our ideas, in time, become our realities".

I didn't really agree 100%, but I noticed that what it didn't say, was that our thoughts become our realities. That made sense, because while our thoughts are all over the place, our ideas are specific. (or at least more so)

There's only a fine line between thought and idea, but I do think they defer in application. Thought is just the beginning. It can be good or bad. But action only comes from thought, that has progressed into an idea, regardless of the idea's complexity.

Here are some definitions from Dictionary.com

Thought.

- the product of mental activity; that which one thinks: a body of thought.

- a single act or product of thinking; idea or notion: to collect one's thoughts.

- the act or process of thinking; mental activity: Thought as well as action wearies us.

- the capacity or faculty of thinking, reasoning, imagining, etc.: All her thought went into her work.

- a consideration or reflection: Thought of death terrified her.

- meditation, contemplation, or recollection: deep in thought.

Idea.

- any conception existing in the mind as a result of mental understanding, awareness, or activity.

- a thought, conception, or notion: That is an excellent idea.

- an impression: He gave me a general idea of how he plans to run the department.

- an opinion, view, or belief: His ideas on raising children are certainly strange.

- a plan of action; an intention: the idea of becoming an engineer.

 

That's only one dictionary of course, but although the line is indeed thin, thought is the prerequisite of an idea. 

 

So why am I interested in sharing this information with no point to it? Well here's the point: We all know we need to guard our thoughts, but ideas can be more damaging, they produce action.

It's a weak point, I know, and maybe I'm splitting hairs, yes. But consider history: Who ever got into a history book by thinking? It's always the ideas that come from it. I know today that thought can pretty much be lumped with ideas, but there's a difference between the two that I feel is important. Hitler had an idea. Darwin had an idea. Woodrow Wilson had an idea. (League of Nations) Napoleon had, several ideas. Leonardo Da Vinci....he had to many!

A quote from The Church Of Irresistible Influence quoting Napoleon, "Men do not rule, ideas rule!"

Today we call what we write down, our thoughts. We tell others our thoughts. That's okay. But I really think that I'm talking about an idea right now. As of yet, I'm not sure what the complete importance of that is, or whether it is important at all, but my point is this: It's dangerous to call an idea simply thought, because we are driven by ideas. An awareness of thoughts that have progressed into ideas, would be beneficial to us, because ideas are not thought. Ideas are completed thoughts, and so many times I have found myself acting on an idea, when I was not aware of it's existence. It was simply thought.

I believe this would help us all with self-control. And this has all really reminded me of Inception, which I highly recommend watching. I'm going to do a review of it when I watch it again. Inception shows some of the power of ideas. Stay warm out there!