How powerful is thought? We say it all the time, "It's just a thought." Is it really? We are; therefore, we think. Or we think; therefore, we are? Why are Bill Gates and Donald Trump wealthy? Why was Martha Stewart not completely destroyed by the time she spent in jail? Believe me, I have met people who will tell me that having been in prison is the reason they are poor.

What is it that causes one person to thrive and one person to languish in a similar situation? Is it money or the lack of it? Is it social situation? I thought about this a lot in my career as a welfare worker. Nearly all of the people I met were desperately poor by the time they got to me, but they didn't all start there.

One woman I worked with was schizophrenic and had been living on the streets, but she was the sole inheritor of a multimillion dollar estate. Her family's attorney had been unable to find her. She grew up in the wealthy small town next door to the wealthy small town I grew up in. I inadvertently traveled with her to the land of her most lucid thoughts about a restaurant we had both visited as children. This is how we were able to find out who she was.

Many people I worked with did grow up poor. I grew up poor, albeit in an idyllic setting. Is it skin color? Are people disadvantaged by the color of their skin? I've met thriving people with every variation of skin color I could ever imagine. What did I have that my languishing counterparts did not?

My mind.

Not just my mind, but my thoughts. Some people's minds are ravaged by mental illness and disorganized thought. But even a mentally ill person has a mind. Most mentally ill people can feed themselves when they are hungry and lay down to sleep when they are tired.

Thought is the one single thing that divides the thrivers from the languishers. And not only thought, but consistent thought.

I don't know Martha Stewart, but I can guess she had a momentary thought to take advantage of information she received, and she went on a journey to jail because of that thought. But, her consistent thoughts saved her even in the face of adversity and public humiliation. Martha is rebuilding her empire because of consistent thought that she doesn't even "think" about any more because it is so ingrained.

Poverty thinking says, "I can't afford to" when faced with the expense of change. Abundance thinking says, "I can't afford not to."

If you understand your purpose in life, and you think consistently, "I can't afford not to," the riches of the universe will start to fall into your lap. "I can't afford not to take care of my health, my neighbor, my finances. I can't afford not to take the risk of going after the new career I want, even though everyone around me tells me I'm crazy."

Abundance is not doled out by a paternal god to a chosen few. We are all chosen to live abundantly. The path from poverty to abundance is created by thought alone. Thought is the most powerful tool at our disposal. It is our choice how we use it.