Let’s imagine that you decide to try baking and have chosen to make a chocolate cake. You find a recipe, and among other things, it says to use 12 spoons of sugar.
You follow the recipe precisely, and the chocolate cake comes out of the oven looking lovely. But soon, when you take your first bite, you realise that the cake is too sweet for your liking.
A few months later, you crave chocolate and decide to make the chocolate cake again. Now the question is, how much sugar will you use this time? Will you use the same amount of sugar you used last time, or would you reduce the amount of sugar? Since the cake was too sweet the previous time, reducing the sugar you use when you make it again would be sensible. After all, if you made the cake using the same amount of sugar as last time, it would be too sweet again. In other words, the cake recipe needs to be altered to improve the taste of the cake.
The same concept applies to how one thinks. Suppose one thinks in a certain way that brings unhappiness; if one keeps thinking that same way, the unhappiness will continue. For happiness, one must work on changing one’s current mental recipe.
You might wonder if it’s possible to change how one thinks. In neuroscience, it’s generally accepted that one’s nervous system can undergo what is called “neuroplasticity.” Neuroplasticity is the brain’s remarkable ability to reorganise itself to form new connections and pathways, resulting in one thinking in different ways. So each time you change how you think, your brain undergoes neuroplasticity.
It is true that change requires energy. If you have a big, ugly stone in your garden, you will need to spend energy moving it elsewhere. Change requires energy, but it is also associated with potential rewards.
If change turns out to be less than great, you can often return to how things were.
Finally, changes don’t always have to be major. You can also make small changes, eventually leading to significant changes.
A key aspect of Happy Thinking is the concept of “experiments”. I am, of course, not talking about using test tubes and chemicals to cause explosions in your kitchen! Instead, it’s about embracing mental experiments to see what changes work and do not work. On this website, many mental tools will help you to experiment with change to see if they are helpful. After some experimentation, I am sure you will find the recipe for happiness that will suit you.