The Phases of Thought

By now, many of us have become comfortable in our way of thinking.  As I look back, however, I have become much more aware of who I am ] and who I used to be, not only as a person, but as a thinker.  In class, we learned of the three kinds of thinkers.  I believe that these types are not specific to any one person.  In discussion, we spoke of people we knew who were either naive in their thinking, selfish in their thinking, or fair minded in their thinking.  But as I look back into my past, I see not only a fair minded thinker, but a naive thinker and a selfish thinker.

Throughout my childhood, I was naive to things like the boogieman, monsters under my bed, Santa Clause, etc..  And while during that time I never thought of myself as being naive in my thoughts, many of my decisions and my actions were just that.  But then, as I went a little further into the future of my past (if that makes any sense), I became aware of the fact that I was very, very vindictive and manipulative in my thoughts and actions as a preteen and young teen.  This would have defined me as a selfish thinker, to which I obviously did not think was the case.  Now, as I look at my recent history of events, I see that of a fair minded thinker in both thought and action.  But how is it that I was, or am, all three?  I think we are all given the opportunity to be each of the three kinds of thinkers, and we seem to settle on the one that best fits our situations.  But no one is really ever set in one kind, and through all that occurs, we are who we are and will be who we decide to be.