Who's really in charge

So, I have this pesky problem - recurring thoughts that cause anxiety. [Yes, I am in touch with a professional, etc. - don't get worried]  I like to go on tangents as I write because it follows the meanderings of my mind. Some have called it 'stream of consciousness', but I won't claim such eloquence - it's a matter of convenience. My mind wanders, a lot, like a lot a lot, and this allows me to follow it without having to worry about keeping track when writing. Although it still ends up having a strange rhythm to it - I'm tempted to say it's 'staccato' in nature, but some close friends might take offense to my lack of musical knowledge - the reason for this is that I switch from a writing mode to drifting along with my thoughts, then back again - they never seem to be quite in sync. :)

 Anyways, I like to follow the research and discoveries as best I can in the eclectic fields I am interested in. One of which is mental health [side note: the taboos surrounding mental health issues are a drain on the entirety of society and in my opinion, a bunch of codswallop (I try to avoid cursing)]. An interesting study that was done recently involved checking on on people to see what they were thinking about throughout the day. They found a correlation between how often one was thinking about 'other things' - as opposed to being in the 'present' - and mental health issues [I forget the exact details, but I'll post the link once I'm done with my point.]

I found this particularly interesting because many philosophies, that I have bought in to and 'tried' out, about meditation and spirituality revolve around the concept of being in the 'present' [I admit that my knowledge and exposure may be rather limited] and how that is the key to happiness [this also seems to be a theme in quite a few self-help books... hmm, someone needs to write a paper on the symbiotic evolution of self-help books and religion in practice... ]. I have tried many times to gain control over my mind and be in the present - I suspect there is a lot of other baggage in the way that I will continue to work through before I get 'there'.

So, these pesky thoughts are still bothering me and meditation isn't really helping, even with a mantra. I've decided to take the brute force approach - I'm going to take a pen and a paper and write down the mantra (i.e. "I will not let others negativity bring me down") at least 25 times [or 50 or 100]. It's the best way I can think of until I can truly control my mind's teeterings.


As for the title: who's really in charge? 
Is it our free will or our mind's predispositions and the 'baggage' we carry. I think it's the latter for most of us - even the most successful, perhaps especially the most 'successful'. Maybe one day we'll focus on mental health as part of the education system and will have a truly healthier society, where we can keep our emotions in perspective and allow reason to govern more of our lives. Maybe that's exactly what the world needs...?

The article: 

"People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they're doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101111141759.htm