Positively alright

Positivity of spirit is much harder to achieve than sinking to negativity. It is easier to be pessimistic because most of the time it means that you end up saying,”See – I was right after all!”. I know many people who are naturally pessimistic and negative. I am one of them. But I know of only a very few who sound positive all the time. I have often wondered how people from similar backgrounds and educational qualifications have such different philosophies.
I used to believe that those who thought positively were more simplistic because they did not calculate all the odds that could go against them when analysing a particular situation. I have since changed my mind about that. Those who think positively are not unaware of the pitfalls of a situation, they simply choose to believe that all odds are in their favour and they will come out successful and lo and behold, they are right! The power of thought is not to be trivialised – one can actually will one’s success.
I remember a time when as the song says “Everything’s going my way” was a sort of theme in my life. I never knew a lot of negative consequences and they simply didn’t happen to me. My elder sister, on the other hand, who influenced me greatly, was wholeheartedly negatively and continues to be so. She would be afraid of exams and she’d score poorly. She would be sure everything would go wrong and indeed everything would. She had difficulty studying, getting a job, travelling, getting a recipe right – the whole works. But the point was she wasn’t really bad at any of these – just that she never got to any level without a lot of heartache. I used to think she was born unlucky till I got married and my husband suggested frankly that her attitude might be the key and not the other way around. I realised he was right because when she had a major crisis in her life which was enough to destroy anyone, she fought like a tigress and created a miracle when experts had written her son off. She put her whole heart into her fight and she took a year to turn her son around from a nearly non-verbal child with strong autistic traits to one who was the class topper in a regular school!
So the power of the mind is truly great. I have often tried to figure out when it was that I changed from a confident female to one who was wary and hesitant of trying anything new and afraid of making mistakes at every step. Perhaps it was when I realised life wasn’t all smooth sailing and I had my share of tough problems I screwed up. But that can never be a reason to give up. Life is not a straight line, it is really full of blind curves and you may fail at some points but it’s important to go on with the hope and faith that everything will indeed go your way and it will – be absolutely sure that it will.