Positive thinking works positively
By Michael Sullivan 03/05/2009
Motivational speaker Anthony Robbins built his career on it. Many churches use it as a core belief system. Philosopher Rene Descartes understood the meaning of it hundreds of years ago: “I think, therefore I am.”
While stories of the recession, layoffs and the credit crisis hit hard every day, many people are rising above it by changing their mindset.
Last weekend, my family and I went to the Ventura Harbor. Expecting to see a nearly vacant parking lot due to the recession and the idea that we are all facing calamity, I was shocked at the battle that ensued with other visitors over parking spaces. I couldn’t even return to my car to grab my sunglasses without two people in separate cars waiting eagerly for me to vacate the spot. And it wasn’t just people fighting over parking spots, but on patios of every restaurant, every seat was taken. From The Greek to Brophy Brothers and every restaurant in between, they were all packed. People were even paying to lounge on the tall ship that had sailed to town.
A few weekends ago, the same thing happened at the Pacific View Mall — scarce parking spaces, packed walkways, lines at the registers.
Based upon the occurrences of the last several weeks, one of two things is happening: 1. We are all in severe denial, or 2. We have come to terms about the fact that there are more people working than unemployed, that we have more people who can safely make their mortgage payments than those who are defaulting, and that even though the sky may look gloomy, it is far from falling, recalling a very scared and paranoid children’s character.
It was 1933 when Franklin D. Roosevelt made his famous inaugural address — four years after the Stock Market crashed, the country was in the midst of the Great Depression, 1 in 3 people had lost their job, food was scarce and housing was limited. The country was in a standstill, if not digressing quickly, and Roosevelt had one thing to say about it: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
We can live day by day thinking we will lose our job, or we can think of ways to give more to ensure our jobs won’t be lost. We can look at layoffs as the end of the world, or we can look at it as a new way to reinvent ourselves. We can walk away in despair from our banks when our savings have gone down or we can’t get a loan, or we can look at the situation as an opportunity to explore new ways of making money.
If English physicist Isaac Newton proved that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, then for every bad action that occurs, such as a layoff, there will be a bad reaction and a good reaction. Whatever we are seeing and hearing, at first, will be hard and scary to hear, prompting a negative emotion, but we can easily turn the negative around and do something positive.
Always remember, fear is our worst enemy. Don’t let negative thoughts deter positive actions.
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Great editorial Michael. As we say in the Marine Corps. . . "When the going gets tough. . . The tough get going!"