Positive Thinking: is it real?
Positive thinking
There has been a lot of controversy lately around positive thinking and questions is it real. Some say that it is not and even that it might be down right evil. I’ll give you a link later on to another post on the subject.
What does it hurt?
Positive thinking can harm if the idea is that all one has to do is be positive and blessings and money will fall from the sky. The problem with this is that the person thinks that just because they are being positive life will smile on them and everything will be wonderful. I don’t believe that for an instant.
That isn’t positive thinking, that’s positive wishing. Why do I say that? I say it because you aren’t doing anything about your situation or what you want to happen. Positive thinking with no action behind it is positive wishing only.
When the person doing the positive wishing finds that things don’t work out the way they planned, they become discouraged and may wind up more down than they were before they started “being positive”.
What is positive thinking?
I will give you my definition. Positive thinking is taking any situation or circumstance in your life and thinking about it with a positive twist so that you may gain from the experience and profit by it. Now I don’t mean this to sound too mercenary, but when you think about it, that is what we are trying to get, right?
I don’t mean to say that we do not consider other people or anything like that. In fact, I would say that true positive thinking creates a win/win outcome whenever it can!
Positive thinking looks for a cure for cancer, or poverty. It works on and never gives up making the world a better place. It challenges the thinker to be a better person in all of life.
That is positive thinking to me.
What will it do?
Positive thinking, real positive thinking, will at the very least make the thinker happier. I know this is true from my own life. When you always look for the negative in life, you become a very sour person.
At the very best, positive thinking can bring you everything you ever wanted in life. It will bring you riches and success. It will bring you the relationships you want and all life has to offer.
The reality is probably somewhere in the middle. It will make your world brighter and it will help you to be more productive in whatever it is you hope to do.
Do I think positive thinking is worth it? Yes, I do!
Here’s to You!
P.S. Here is the link I promised.
Is Positive Thinking the Same as Optimism?
6 Responses to “Positive Thinking: is it real?”
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I couldn’t agree more, Annabel! You are right about sitting around waiting for the Universe to fill our order like some cosmic bell boy!
I suppose the optimist thing is a matter of semantics once again. I have known people who were such unrealistic optimists that if their leg fell off they would look down and say, “My, doesn’t my leg look nice laying there. I’m so lucky to have been able to see it fall off like that. I’ll just sit here and wait for it to come back on.” I agree that looking on the bright side of things is good, but then I would call that positive thinking!
Sweet post here. It’s a huge topic but you’ve done a great job of summing it up. I was just about to comment that you think positive thinking means being optimistic when I saw the name of the article you link to and read it only to see that’s not your point at all:)
Here’s my take:
1. Books like The Secret which sell the power of attraction are a bit of a con. There’s no way that if we sit around saying “I’m rich and beautiful” we’ll become rich and beautiful.
2. If you want to be rich and beautiful you’ve got to work at it. Set up a business, work hard, make mistakes, save hard etc. I won’t go into how you become beautiful because that’s harder to quantify!
3. Negative thinking will harm you. If we allow ourselves to believe the little voices that say: “You’re plain and boring, you’ll never amount to anything.” Then we won’t get anywhere in life.
To sum up:
So I think positive thinking can drown out these negative voices but hard work, passion and perseverance are irreplaceable. And I do think that optimists get more out of life too because if you were a pessimist well, why would you even bother?!