The Two Simple Phrases That Will Change How You See The World

Kevin Ervin Kelley, AIA
10 min readMar 22, 2020

An effective technique for driving your mind and steering your thoughts

A Life-Changing Dream

By no means do I have life figured out.

Occasionally, I will lose my mind by getting too wrapped up in an issue or the maddening pace of life.

And there are times I find myself mentally wore out from obsessing over something so trivial, insignificant, or unchangeable that it isn’t worth my time thinking about…yet I still do.

However, I have developed a simple but profound technique for how to catch myself before I fall too deep into a hole of overthinking things. This technique involves saying two simple phrases that remind me of how to reign in my thoughts and bring my mind back to a more grounded center.

At the risk of scaring you off, these two phrases came to me as part of an intense and lucid dream I had during a difficult period in my life. My business partner and I were struggling to keep our business afloat during the Great Recession, a serious relationship turned sour, and then my brother died unexpectedly.

All of these events came crashing down on me hard, and they made me question what I was doing with my life.

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Kevin Ervin Kelley, AIA

I’m a retail architect that studies human behavior, perception, and decision-making. I’m fascinated with the intersection of where commerce and community meet.