Our minds are like an open jar and we are responsible for filling it. Yes, and like an empty container that is filled up with water or milk or coffee, it only can pour out what we fill it up with. If it is filled with water, it will not pour out milk, only water.

So if you fill up your mind with the disorder, the lack of morals, the lack of commitment that the world around you shows, that is also what your words will pour out through your mouth and your behavior will also show.

You are in control and totally responsible for what the container of your mind is full of.

Unfortunately we are not trained to think that way.

Since we come into this world, and even before, when we are in the womb we start receiving the influence of our parents, those who surround them, the media they watch and listen to, and, perhaps their thoughts.

I was born after 11 years of marriage. My parents talked a lot about their inability of having a baby. My mother had gone through two miscarriages, we called natural abortions. That left bitterness and hopelessness in her mind. My father thought for a long time that he was impotent because my mother didn’t conceive for many years. He was convinced, after my mother lost the first baby, that something was wrong with his seed.

So when my mother got pregnant with me and she passed the first four months without lossing me, my father had some hope.

However, my mother was very sick and weak because she vomited everything she ate. She could not retain anything in her stomach.

So the doctor decided that she had an acidic condition because of the rich French food prepared at home and prescribed food that caused a false diabetes. Her diet consisted of apples boiled in sugar syrup and, of all things, oysters.

He also ordered for her to remain in bed for the rest of the pregnancy. Five months!

While she was in bed she read many books and listened to the radio. Her favorite was classical instrumental music and opera. She also listened to the news.

So my mind under formation received music, news, and interesting and tragic romantic stories mainly in Italian, French and German, through Opera.

My parents thought that the best choice for me was to go to a school run by nuns. However, since my mind was prepared to be inquisitive, I asked too many questions that the nuns could not answer. They told my parents to take me to another school.

Then I was sent to a school where my mind obtained “classical” education. I learned art, music, literature, science, philosophy, mathematics, and science.

So, for years, I let my mind be filled with whatever happened around me and whatever I was taught by my teachers. I think it was absolutely logical that my first choice, when it came to deciding on a profession, was to go to a university and study journalism. My mind had been prepared to receive and share information, but, unfortunately, only worldly information.