"To begin with, what are beliefs? Let me give you a few examples by asking you some simple questions that can be answered with two or three descriptive words. First, what do you think of people in general? For instance, are they kind, trust- worthy, and good-hearted, or are they shallow, naive, and lazy? Okay. Now, what do you think of life in general? Is it easy, hard, exciting, or boring? And good health? Is it elusive or predictable, and do you have it or do you wish you did? And tell me about yourself. Are you creative, stubborn, determined, carefree, or disappointed?
No matter how you answered those questions, you’ve just shared with me some of your beliefs. Here’s the catch: you think your answers are simply innocent observations about your reality and yourself, but instead they’ve actually helped cre- ate your reality. If you think life is hard, for example, it becomes hard. It wasn’t hard to begin with, not until you started thinking it was. Over time, however, you stopped seeing this observation as “your opinion” and began seeing it as a fact of life, and thus the belief was born. We have thousands of beliefs. They’re not all undesirable, but they do become the de facto police officers of our thoughts. They create rules for our thinking, and these rules are the most rigid ones we live by."
[Infinite Possibillitiesp. 54]
