As we near the end of the year and prepare for Christmas celebrations with family and friends, there always follows the New Year and traditionally people make new resolutions for the year ahead.
Often, these are positive resolutions. People promise themselves or others to turn a new page and to be better at something or other.
It's what some people call Positive Thinking.
Some believe that our fortune and success in life is dependent on our attitude and our outlook. I heard it said that if you write a list of all the things you want to achieve in life and concentrate on them you will achieve them.
What nonsense.
Positive Thinking alone will not help you achieve anything. All it will do is set you up for great disappointment when you do not achieve what you hoped you will achieve.
Our achievements in life require other different and varied factors apart from the positiveness of our thought processes.
Let me explain.
I may wish to be a cat. But I will never be a cat no matter how positively I wish it and think it. That's because I am too fat and would probably get stuck in the cat flap at the bottom of the kitchen door. All that my positive thinking would achieve is a dead body of a human with a cat fetish of some sort. Now that would make a good newspaper headline.
Put another way ... people may wish to be an astronaut, or a brain surgeon, or a world celebrity or leader. Thinking about it, no matter how positively, will not achieve it. Most probably the individuals concerned have the ability of a dead cockroach and the brain power of a stuffed dodo in a museum. So let them put all the positive thinking in their pipe and smoke it, as we used to say when I was young.
My advice to one and all, especially as you enjoy Christmas and look forward to the New Year, is to cherish and nurture Negative Thinking.
Be a pessimist. Look on the dark side of things. Expect them to go wrong.
It's logical.
Look at it this way. If you are a pessimist, and things turn out right, you would be pleasantly surprised and happy that all's well. If things turn out bad as you expected, you'll have the pleasure of saying to people, "I told you so!"
Keep smiling ... I told you so!
Good advice. Pretty much. There's "positive" and there's "delusional," and that's another topic. Topics.
ReplyDeleteThanks and Merry Christmas. Or is it Amusing Advent - - - no, that doesn't quite sound right. More topics.
Yes Brian, I see the difference between positive and delusional thinking. I have know people at work who believed they could be senior management when in reality they were not capable at all. It was difficult advising them in their annual performance reviews.
DeleteGod bless.
Now, that's a new twist on negative thinking, Victor. Maybe instead of positive thinking, we should call it having a positive attitude. That way, when things don't go as we planned, we can still give thanks.
ReplyDeleteBlessings!
I agree, a positive attitude is entirely different and better.
DeleteGod bless, Martha.
Positive thinking, negative thinking but just thinking at all might be a good start. :) There are lots of non thinkers in the world these days.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Bill. Some people cannot think to save their lives. Good point.
DeleteGod bless you.
I don't make resolutions.
ReplyDeleteI like Bill's comment!!
I agree with Bill.
DeleteGod bless, Happyone.
Oh my word! I love the way your mind works! Meanwhile, I know a certain 'sad-sack' fellow back in Phoenix who needs to read this.
ReplyDeleteLet your Phoenix friend join us here, Mevely. We need all the readers we can get. In fact, here is another truth from my mind: if all my loyal readers invite one more person to visit us here then most likely we would have more people visiting us here. Not many people know that!
DeleteKeep smiling, Mevely. My logic is good. God bless you always my friend.
I've always said the secret to success is to set very low goals.
ReplyDeleteWe are in full agreement here, JoeH.
DeleteGod bless you.