Clearing the junk in your mind's attic
How the unexamined impressions of you mind's atttic affect the quality of your life
We colour our minds by what we repeatedly think. Angry thoughts produce more angry thoughts, anxious thoughts produce more anxious ones, and hopeful thoughts produce more hopeful ones.
The quality of our life is based on the quality of our thoughts.
Your mind will resemble your frequently repeated thoughts because it takes on the hue of its thoughts. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.16
Our recurring thoughts originate from what we store in the attics of our minds. They are mostly our unexamined impressions from the past. Let’s take a closer look.
What we store in our attics
What do we store in our attics, basements, or storage facilities? Usually, it is things we don’t know what to do with just yet. We don’t examine them. We put them out of our mind by putting them out of sight. We think we have solved the problem. But these things remain there forever, only to create problems later.
Why do we do this? Why can’t we get rid of the things that are not useful, fix the things that need fixing, and decide what to do with things we thoughtlessly store? We do these things mostly because we don’t want to spend time deciding. Our indecision creates clutter and costs us resources.
Even more destructive is what we store in our mind’s attic. We store our unexamined impressions, such as our prejudices, resentments, grievances, unrelated facts, and rumours here. Collectively, they can be called “junk thoughts.” We treat the junk in our mind’s basement as something precious, even as it crowds out the thoughts that will help us lead a flourishing life. When we go about our lives, junk thoughts from the attics of our minds pop up to disturb our tranquillity. What are these thoughts like?
I never get the breaks I deserve.
My neighbour is such a jerk.
If only my family was less dysfunctional.
I’m sure I won’t have enough when I retire.
My boss is not very smart.
People are unfair.
We are often unaware that our mind’s attics harbour such thoughts and colour our reactions to events. So, we continue to blame external events for the state of our lives.
How do we deal with the attic of our mind?
Clearing the junk in your mind’s attic
When I bought a house many years ago, a friend said, “Make sure you finish your basement. An unfinished basement is a junk magnet.” That worked well for me. Let’s see if we can apply this wisdom to our minds’ attics.
The junk we store in our minds’ attics, such as grievances of things past, unexamined impressions, and imagined troubles of future happenings, is the source of our disturbance and fear. Seneca suggests that the key to tranquillity and freedom is eliminating things that disturb and frighten us.
Once we have driven away all things that disturb or frighten us, there follows unbroken tranquillity and unending freedom. - Seneca, On the Happy Life, 3
Identifying all the junk stored in your mind’s attic may be difficult because much of it could be hiding in the darkness, only to pop up and colour your impressions. So, let’s start now and be on guard.
1. See how the quality of your thoughts affects your judgments
Unexamined impressions are the main cause of unhappiness. We often act on unexamined impressions (such as “My boss doesn’t like me,” “I will be really happy when I make a million dollars,” or “So-and-so is talking behind my back”). The quality of our thoughts is influenced by the thoughts we frequently repeat, which we store in and retrieve from our mental attic. Because thoughts are coloured by what we store in our minds' attic, let’s look at our thoughts closely and fully.
Suppose you think, “My partner is unfair to me.” Don’t accept it right away. Look at it. What is the source of this impression? What caused it? How long have you had this impression? How long do you think you will continue to hold this impression? See how this impression is affecting how you see your partner.
Always look at the whole thing. What is making an impression on you? Unpack it. Analyze its cause, its matter, its purpose, and its duration. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.18
See how it colours your thoughts, affects your judgment, and causes you to act on distorted impressions. Become aware of the connection between the junk we store in our minds' attics, our distorted judgments, and the quality of our lives.
2. Be selective about thoughts that enter your mind’s attic
We should be careful about what we store in our attics and guard them so that no unexamined impressions, biases, grievances, or prejudices can enter. This means we need to examine every thought and impression. Marcus Aurelius suggests you should not accept any thought or impression as true without examining it. If you decide a thought is false or inconclusive, refuse to store it in your mind’s attic.
You should be on guard against them at every moment. Whenever you detect them, you should eliminate them. Tell yourself, “This thought is unnecessary,” or, “This one is destructive to the people around me,” or, “These are not my true thoughts [they are just unexamined impressions] or, “This thought has got the better of my divine part.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.19
For example, instead of accepting a thought like “What happened to me was unfair” or “My friend is thoughtless” and putting it in your attic, ask yourself,
Does this thought deserve a space in the attic of my mind?
Doesn’t it damage my relationships with others?
Do I really believe it?
Can’t I rise above this?
No more rent-free space in your mental attic for unexamined impressions of past grievances and future anxieties. Ensure that nothing enters your mental attic until you examine and approve it.
3. Use reason to filter out unexamined impressions
While it is difficult to identify all the grievances, prejudices, resentments, and anxieties we have stored in the dark corners of our attics, they routinely manifest in our daily lives. Whenever we get angry or upset, become worried or anxious, or become judgmental, the chances are some junk thought from our mind’s attic has taken over. So, we should immediately use reason to identify the junk stored in our attic. In short, we apply reason to assess our impressions.
[Reason] tries to delete the bad judgments entrenched in our mind as the result of misperceptions and to free us from them. It tries to introduce sound judgments in accordance with nature or to correct unsound judgments. - Musonius Rufus, Letter to Pankratides
We should throw out the junk in the attic and replace it with sound judgments.
We must try to free ourselves from these evils to the extent we are created to live in an orderly and decent way. - Musonius Rufus, Letter to Pankratides
This is not a one-time effort. We have been accumulating mental junk all our life and nourishing it. Completely getting rid of it cannot be done overnight. It is a long process but a rewarding one.
Try this simple exercise
Think of an instance (preferably a recent one that you can clearly recall) where you were quick to get angry, upset, or judgmental. Review exactly what happened. What made this happen? Looking back, was it really as bad as you thought it was? See its connection to other times you felt the same way. Do you see a pattern? Could you have handled it better? Was it—getting angry, upset, or judgmental—worth it? Decide to be careful what you let enter the attic of your mind.
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'Finish your basement' will be mystifying to most Brits, unless they have lived in north America. Most of us don't have basements, and the few who do don't finish them.
Thank you, Chuck, for this especially useful letter this morning.