I know what you are thinking, or do I? Well, let's start off with the ways human beings think, and how mentally wired and ridiculous humans can be! If you are person who understand that one persons perception is often their reality then this is for you. Hang on tight because this is going to get interesting. I will then put this into a video post if I decide.

The Mental Filter - We often can only notice things that our mental filter will allow.
We dismiss anything that does not "fit" with our value system. So, we gravitate toward things on the internet that are only connected to our value system. Ask your self a few things and see what answers your mind gives you. Am I only noticing the crap, and the negative shit? Am I filtering out anything good and hanging on to the negative? Am I hanging on to the positive only, and filtering out the things that I learned from the bad stuff? What am I filtering out? We as humans have become cognitive filters.

Lesson 1: Beware of what you filter out; it may be good!

Mind-Reading - We often get a text message and forget positive intent and we assume what others are thinking about. We read a text, not even hear their voice, and we immediately jump to conclusions and tie our emotions to it. A mind read is your own thoughts, and not other people's thoughts. An awesome question to ask yourself would be: Can I look at things in another way? Are these my thoughts or the other person's thoughts?

Lesson 2: Beware of your own thoughts! You do not have a mind reading cape!

Compare and Despair - We seek out the good and positive aspects in other people, and then find ways to relate them back to who we are! We compare ourselves when we don't have the house, or the car, or the front yard! We compare ourselves and then despair about it, and become depressed when we reflect back on our failures. We look at facebook and instagram and compare and despair.

Lesson 3: Live your own life, and understand you are you. You have your own path and it is unique to you.

Criticalness - We can put ourselves in the trash self esteem wise and often do not know what good self esteem is because this day an age self esteem can border arrogance and gets confused and mixed up. So, we tear down other people on the internet as way to cope, or we tear down ourselves. The true litmus test of self-worth is not how a you feel about your exciting experiences, but rather how you feels about your negative experiences.

We have become entitled. We have become exceptionalists! We believe that we have to be that way, and there are portions of life that are average, and uneventful, but we insist on making ourselves an internet spectacle to stand out or be "special" or "exceptional." Most of us are fucking pretty average at what we do. It is nothing mystical, and its totally ok and fine.

It seems like average has become the new crappy failure. There is nothing wrong with average. People who have reached greatness have become great because they aim to improve in small measurable amounts. People want the "target life", and not the "work for it life." We have to understand we can be average and put the work in and that is ok. We measure and push! Your life can be boring, and it will have cycles of ups and downs, and that's ok. When things get hard it will get interesting. We have criticized everyone on the internet at one point, or have been criticized. Things are not the picture we see on the internet. Even Brittany Spears had the height of her career to the low of her career. We all have good cycles no one escapes this... Julius Cesar had the height of his empire and the fall of it. We all have cycles no one escapes this!

Lesson 4: Have compassion for yourself, and understand you are work in progress! Life goes through cycles.

Should/Must Thinking - I must do this or that. We must. They must. We all must. We should, or I should. Have you heard these before? We need to avoid too much pressure on ourselves, and ask yourself if you have realistic expectations? Are these impossible targets or are they measurable?

Lesson 5: Watch how you measure, OR THE MEASUREMENT YOU USE, you could create unrealistic expectations.

Mental Exaggerating - Do you make things bigger than they are? Do you minimize the good things? Do you destroy the small things and make things bigger? Ask yourself this... How would someone else see it? Is there another perspective? How else can you look at the problem? Am I destroying the good? Am I making things bigger?

Lesson 6: Things don't always have to be expanded, or bigger all the time. We have to get the facts before deciding further. See it for what it is, or get another opinion on it.

Thank you. For reading there are dozens of cognitive distortions out there, and these are just a few.