POSITIVE THINKING VERSUS NEGATIVE THINKING
The True Measure
The true measure of how successful you are in life is how happy you are—most of the time. If you are wealthy, famous, or powerful but you are not happy, you have failed in your primary responsibility to yourself as a human being. Every human act is aimed at achieving a greater state of happiness, however, the individual defines it.
This does not mean that every action leads to happiness. Many people make a complete mess of their lives attempting to achieve happiness and often end up unhappier and more dissatisfied than they would have been if they had done nothing. They are examples of the Law of Unintended Consequences and the Law of Perverse Consequences. The positive emotions of love, joy, peace, excitement, success, and the feeling that you are fulfilling your complete potential are what everyone aims at almost all the time.
What Successful People Do
Successful people practice positive thinking most of the time. As a result, they are happier, more genial, more popular, and derive more real pleasure from life than the average person. The opposite of positive thinking is negative thinking. Negative thinkers tend to be hostile and suspicious.
They are distrustful of others, and they expect negative things to happen to most of the time. They have negative personalities and are highly critical of both themselves and the people around them.
No matter what happens, they are seldom satisfied for any period of time. Life to them is a series of problems and difficulties over which they feel they have little control and about which there is nothing they can do.
Many years ago, when I began asking the question, “Why are some people more successful and happy than others?” I started studying the contrast and difference between positive emotions and negative emotions. What I found changed my life forever.
The Great Discovery
What I discovered is that everyone wants to be happy, however, he defines it. The main obstacle between each person and the happiness that he desires is negative emotions.
Negative emotions lie at the root of virtually all problems in human life. If there was some way that you could eliminate negative emotions, you could wipe out most of the problems of mankind.
There is a way to do this. Nature abhors a vacuum. If you eliminate negative emotions, your mind automatically fills with positive emotions. When you eliminate negative emotions, you become a fully functioning person.
When you eliminate negative emotions, you become capable of fulfilling your full potential. The main job of life, then, is to eliminate negative emotions.
Thought at a Time
Your mind can only hold one thought at a time—positive or negative. But if you don’t deliberately hold a positive thought or emotion, a negative thought or emotion will tend to fill your mind, at least at the beginning.
Negative thoughts tend to be easy and automatic, the default setting of the brain for most people. Thinking positively actually requires effort and determination until it becomes a habitual response to life and circumstances.
Fortunately, you can become a purely positive thinker through learning and practice. The starting point of eliminating negative emotions is to understand where they come from in the first place.
The good news is that no child is born with any fears or negative emotions. All fears and negative emotions must be taught to the growing child in his or her formative years.
And because negative emotions are learned, they can be unlearned. Because negative emotions are habitual ways of responding and reacting to people and situations, they can be replaced with constructive habits of responding and reacting. This is very much a matter of choice. Abraham Lincoln said, “Most people are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Take Control
When you blame anyone else for anything, you give up control of your emotions. You turn control of your emotions over to the person you are blaming, whether he knows it or not.
By blaming someone else for something, you enable that person to manipulate and control your emotions—at a long distance. You give him power and control over your own happiness by your refusal to forgive him and to let him go.
And in most cases, he doesn’t even know how much control he has over your happiness and well-being. By complaining about and criticizing others, you set yourself up as a “victim.” By blaming others, you make yourself feel small and weak, angry, and inferior.
Instead of seeing yourself as a totally responsible, self-reliant individual, you allow yourself to be controlled by others and not in charge of your own life and emotions. When you blame other people, you become negative, angry, suspicious, hostile, and weak. Is this what you had in mind?
Say the Magic Words
The good news is that at any time you can say the magic words “I am responsible” and put yourself immediately back into the driver’s seat of your own emotional life.
Whenever you experience a negative thought of any kind, immediately cancel it with the words “I am responsible!” Do this over and over again until it becomes automatic and easy.
Acceptance of responsibility is the mark of a leader, an achiever, and a self-actualizing man or woman. Resolve today to become a totally responsible, completely mature, fully functioning adult.
Just say the words “I am responsible” over and over again and mean it. This is the real key to positive thinking.
