Don’t allow a negative thought 
to become your new mantra.

Something is seen or heard and it bothers us, a lot. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t thoughtful. It’s not supposed to be that way.

Whatever the reason, we are incapable of just brushing the thought aside and getting on with our life.

It’s pretty ironic when you think of it.

What we want to do is focus on the thought of Amituofo, but our mind keeps slipping away from him. What we don’t want to do is keep thinking the negative thought, but our mind keeps returning to it as surely as chicks scurry back to the mother hen. We end up turning those irritating thoughts into our latest mantra; reviewing them like a favorite movie, refining them as if editing the next best-seller.

Maybe our returning is understandable: the irritation is right outside our window. Or perhaps we just can’t, actually won’t, forgive and forget. Well, we need to.

If you were to die right now, what would you want to be thinking of—Amituofo or that thought?