INTRODUCTIONIn his book Sapiens , Dr. Yuval Noah Harari explains that at one point, there
were more than just Homo sapiens roaming the Earth1. In fact, there were likely as many as
six different types of humans in existence: Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo sol
oensis, Homo erectus , etc.There’s a reason Homo sapiens still exist today and the other
s didn’t continue to evolve: a prefrontal cortex, which we can infer from skeletal structu
res. Essentially, we had the ability to think more complexly, thus were able to organize,
cultivate, teach, practice, habituate and pass down a world suited for our survival. Becau
se of our capacity to imagine, we were able to build Earth as it is today out of virtually
nothing.In a sense, the notion that thoughts create reality is more than just a nice idea
; it’s also a fact of evolution. It was because of language and thought that we could crea
te a world within our minds, and ultimately, it is because of language and thought that we
have evolved into the society we have today—for better and for worse .Almost every grea
t master, artist, teacher, innovator, inventor, and generally happy person could att
ribute some similar understanding to their success. Many of the world’s 'best’ people unde
rstood that to change their lives, they had to change their minds.These are the same peopl
e who have communicated to us some of the longest-standing conventional wisdom: that to be
lieve is to become, that the mind is to be mastered, that the obstacle is the way2.
Often, our most intense discomfort is what precedes and necessitates thinking in a way
we have never conceived of before. That new awareness creates possibilities that would nev
er exist had we not been forced to learn something new. Why did our ancestors develop agri
culture, society, medicine, and the like? To survive. The elements of our world were once
just solutions to fears.In a more cerebral context, if you consciously learn to
regard the "problems" in your life as openings for you to adopt a g
reater understanding and then develop a better way of living, you will step out of the lab
yrinth of suffering and learn what it means to thrive.I believe that the root of the work
of being human is learning how to think. From this, we learn how to love, share, coexist,
tolerate, give, create,and so on. I believe the first and most important duty we have is to
actualize the potential we were born with—both for ourselves and for the world.The unspok
en line of everything I write is: "This idea changed my life." Because ideas are what
change lives—and that was the first idea that changed mine.