I'm finding it increasingly difficult to laugh at the antics of normal crazy people - what starts as a row over a parking space can end in manslaughter - as happened in an Asda carpark in Biggleswade; what starts as overly-tolerated petty crime can end in suicide bombing and mass murder - as happened on November 13th in Paris and, again, yesterday morning as people went about their business in Brussels. As a casual observer, I can choose to be amused by the nonsense that passes for normal behaviour but, as a psychologist, perhaps I should be a little more forthcoming in suggesting that anyone with open eyes and an open mind should not tolerate normal crazy behaviour... give the crazies an inch and they take a mile. Let's remember that as we go about our business today.

We're all prone to normal crazy behaviour - we've been at it since we were eleven or twelve years old and, because it's so prevalent, we're inclined to let ourselves away with, if not murder, inappropriate repetitive reaction. Today, as you go about the business of living, stop yourself, perhaps every forty minutes or so. Reflect on how you're behaving, what effect that is having on your own mood, focus and effectiveness and how your reactions are effecting everyone around you.

Last week we talked about things you should do... meditate being top of that particular list - and things you should not do or stop doing. I want to explore this a little further today - I would like to explore it on a more fundamental level - all the way down to the level of what is going on in your head.

Your neurological structures are pretty much set in stone by eleven or twelve years of age - your life up to then preparing you to live on autopilot so that, whilst out hunting for tonight's dinner, you didn't come to any harm!! In other words, your brain is structured so that you can make it through the day. What thoughts you have in your head are, largely, also set in stone by then - the 70,000 thoughts that now "entertain" you daily are largely repetitive - your thought patterns are ruminative.

Ruminative thought is the start of all bad things - primarily because we're predisposed to dwelling on the negative "entertaining" thoughts. Research establishes that ruminative negative thought leads from annoyance to frustration to anxiety to stress to depression... it's one hell of a slippery slope!

On a more fundamental level, ruminative thought means that we never leave our own personal "Groundhog Day". We break the monotony with nights out, holidays - we often break the daily monotony by looking forward to breaking the monototy for a couple of weeks in the sun! We pretend to change our lives with diets that have no lasting impact, gym memberships that cost money but little sweat, New Year's Resolutions that are forgotten by Valentine's Day. We take our daily life for granted, we bitch and moan about the "not too bad" aspects of life but "not too bad" is never bad enough to do anything fundamental about it.

We're caught in a trap of our own making - and the "magic" goes on day in, day out. All because of thought: repetitive reactive thought (I always thought I was shy, now I think I'm right!); comparative thought (I want what he has!); wishful thinking (I hope that a better job will come along); thinking about the future (I'll take up sport when I retire); thought lacking gratitude (I'm fed up with what I have).

Thinking is a dangerous thing - made all the more dangerous because you rarely have a new or original thought in your head. Thinking leads to all manner of ills - but they only arise because you think them into being. Stop thinking, start doing, start breathing in and out and experiencing it, start encountering the reality of the moment, start being present... when you're present, that's when you start living your life.

What could you learn in one day that might change your life? How could you go about setting your mind to achieve extraordinary goals, develop extraordinary focus and life extraordinarily, effortlessly... a lot of superlatives but, bear in mind, extraordinary only means beyond the ordinary - and we all know what the ordinary mind is like! That is why you need to take control of your ordinary mind so that you start using it extraordinarily - and that, in turn, it starts working for you rather than against you. The Psychology of Succes - the up to the minute version of the one-day Workshop that I've been running for twenty years, will take place again in Dublin on May 10th... get all the details here...