One of the ways to keep happiness
in your life depends on how you approach and react to life itself. As
Marcus Antoninus once said, "The happiness of your life depends on the
quality of your thoughts."
If your thoughts are, "Okay, this happened to me but I know there is an
advantage and I will find it", you WILL find it because you are focused
to look for it rather than being focused on "why me!"
If your reactions are usually negative in that all you see is the 'bad'
in every situation, you are setting yourself up for continual
unhappiness.
If your thoughts are, 'Why did this happen to me?' you are engaging in what I call the poor me syndrome.
When you have a positive approach to life, that is you look for and are
able to see the good in all situations, you will find that you will be
much happier more often."There is little difference in people,
but that little difference makes a big difference.The little difference is attitude.
The big difference is whether it is positive or negative."
W. Clement Stone
Having a positive attitude does not prevent you from having to face
challenges. Positive thoughts, though, will help you cope with the
challenges you face so you can take advantage of opportunities within
them.
Here is a simple example of what happened to me today that demonstrates
positive vs. negative thinking. I took my truck in to the garage to
check the brakes; they had been giving a thumping noise for the last
couple of days so I thought it wise to check them out before summer and
more driving coming my way.
I go to the garage and waited for the technician to tell me what was
wrong. In about fifteen minutes, the supervisor came over with several
sheets in his hand and asked me if I was ready for some bad news. I
looked at the report about my brakes and took a deep breath. What I
thought would be a simple fix was a major problem with each brake rotor,
pads cylinders-the whole nine yards needing to be replaced to the tune
of one thousand dollars. Wow! I was shocked.
On the one hand, I could cry fowl and wail and moan but instead, I knew
that the technician had nothing to do with causing the brake problem nor
did my brakes do it to me out of some cosmic spite. But, this was an
event that I gave no control to, nor did I give it power, it was a
simple event in life dealing with mechanical parts that are meant to be
serviced when they wear out. So, keeping this thought in my mind, I
simply told them to do whatever they had to in order to make my vehicle
safe.
The next thing that happened was when I went to fill up two propane
tanks that I had just exchanged with my trailer dealer because they were
defective. Both these tanks needed to be purged before they could be
filled so I went to my local Costco outlet only to be told that they
could not purge tanks only refill them. This was another event where I
could have easily lost my cool but, again, it wasn’t the fault of anyone
just a set of circumstances. So, I put the tanks in my truck and off I
went again to a local hardware store that I knew could do it, and simply
got it done. No negative emotion and where a little drive time to the
local hardware store resolved the situation.
Each one of us always has a choice about how to react to any given
situation. The real challenge is to release you from negative emotional
energy, which is always wasted on whatever the issue is at hand. The
only real way to avoid this negative emotion is to train yourself over
and over again to understand that, first of all, you do have a choice of
how you will react, and secondly, that a negative reaction does in no
way move you forward in finding a positive solution.
Positive action defeats negative emotion any day of the week.
John Amatt summarizes this thought well - he said:
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