Do you have a friend who can read your mind? I don’t mean actual ESP. I’m referring to someone who knows you so well that he or she can accurately predict what you are likely to be thinking given almost any given circumstance. I’ve had a few of those friends. It’s like they can read my thought bubbles. Which is scary, given some of my thoughts!

Trying to prevent others from reading my thoughts led me to some interesting research. Apparently, the AFDB (short for Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie) is something I should check out. The website touts the AFDB as an “effective, low cost solution to combating mind-control.”

But I’ve chosen to go another route. Instead of trying to prevent my thoughts from being read, I’ve tried to have better thoughts.

So yesterday when a car cut in front of me on the highway without so much as a blinker, I didn’t think “You &*^%@?!” Instead, I thought, “He must be in a big hurry.”

This morning when one of my cats jumped on my bed at 4 am to announce the approach of morning, I didn’t think about kicking him across the room or offering to help him out the second story window. Rather, I assumed he was out of food or water. And I went downstairs to discover that he was out of both.

And when I discovered this afternoon that my daughter left the freezer door open in the basement, I didn’t think that she was an irresponsible airhead. In place of those thoughts, I told myself, “It must not have shut all the way closed when she got me something I needed for the Fourth of July barbecue.”

Positive thinking won’t help other drivers behave better. It won’t keep cats from being cats. It won’t close freezer doors when they are left open. But positive thinking can prevent you from getting upset, and positive thinking can drive away some of the negativity in your life.

Thinking positively won’t change your circumstances, but it will change you if you try it.