You can’t predict the next email that will appear in your inbox, but depending on which companies you’ve given it out to, the newsletters you’ve signed up for, the friends you’re in touch with and the recent emails you’ve written, you probably won’t be too surprised at the next email that suddenly appears.

Your mind works the same way—the thoughts and emotions that seem to come out of nowhere are really just a product of what you’ve been doing with your life.

Unless you’ve been in a coma since birth (at which point you wouldn’t be reading this), then it’s essentially impossible to not have some “inbox activity.”  That’s ok.  The idea isn’t to shut down your account.  Rather, it’s to be judicious about to whom “you give your email address,” and even more judicious about to whom “you send emails.”

Hang out with grateful people.  Read inspiring stories rather than cynical analysis.  Hang out with generous people.  Watch thoughtful movies instead of reality TV, time-killing sitcoms, the news or the football game.  Hang out with kind people.  Work a job that contributes over one that simply makes money.  Hang out with wise people.  Take up a spiritual practice and pay close attention to your unskillful habits.  Hang out with… you get the idea.

When you start to pay close attention to “your incoming emails,” your thoughts and emotions, and you don’t really want to keep reading about increasing your manhood a few inches, which politician or entertainer has it all wrong and how the world’s glass of water is half-empty, then you might start to make those choices a little differently, and your inbox will slowly become a joy to read.

And, most importantly, imagine how the quality of thoughts and emotions you receive will effect the quality of actions you write.

Whoa.