The Dangers Of Thinking Literally

If you don't know what a word means, or you have the wrong definition, you can go through life in a state of bafflement, shaking your head and trying to figure it out.

For example, take the word faith. Many of us learn as children that if we have faith, nothing is impossible, that faith can move mountains.

What is faith? We have learned that it means confidence and belief. We've been told that if we have confidence, if we believe, whatever it is that we desire in our lives will come about. And that's true.

The literal translation of the word faith is “to think from a different level.” The problem with this is that people who think literally all the time don't know much about what's really going on in the world.

If we're having a problem, and if we can't find a solution to it, we're thinking, the odds are, from a very literal and obvious level. That's the way it looks, and that's the way it is. But that's not true, because what we see, and what's really true, are usually miles apart.

We've all had too many seemingly mysterious events come to pass in our lives to believe in a purely, literal, obvious world. But we grow impatient. We don't seem to fully understand that we can have what we want, if we just take the time to decide what it is that we really want.

We have to create it in our imagination, our consciousness, and then relax and give it time to manifest. But we first need to think at a different level.

Psychologist and philosopher, William James once said that genius is nothing more than the ability to think in ways that are not habitual. It is because we tend to think in habitual ways that our lives can become dull and dreary. We see only the obvious, the external world around us, and miss all the wonderful opportunities that are there for each of us.

We need to think from new level and have patience. And we want will come to us, because thinking from a new level will show us the way to get what we want in this life.

People who think literally are not living in reality, they don't know what really going on in the world. They need to learn the thrill, the excitement, and the sure fulfillment that comes from thinking from a different level.