“Think of nothing else but that one thing and don’t let anything else intrude.” (ODAT, 10 November)
One can, of course, choose some banal thing as the thing to think of, as the reading suggests, like a half-eaten apple, Marjory’s new hairdo, the GDP of Bolivia, or the word ‘selvage’, but, if one’s going to be going to all of the trouble of excluding from one’s mind all thoughts but one, it might as well be a useful one.
One terribly good one is this:
I say, “God’s got a perfect plan.” If some notion or image intrudes, it can be batted off by applying that line to it: “God’s got a perfect plan for this.” “God’s got a perfect plan for that.” I keep doing that until I feel wholly better. If I do not feel wholly better, I have not done it for long enough.