Chapter 6 Positivity

General Positivity

“When you want something with all of your heart … that is when you are closest with the Soul of the World.  It’s always a positive force.”

The Alchemist Paul Coelho

The purpose of life in my mind must be to battle Negativity or at least to overcome it.  So how do we get there … to a positive state of being? And then how do we stay there? I need to be a warrior against Fear and those other negative reactions. The less Negativity that I generate, the less fuel for the fire … (the fire of Hell? Maybe I’m on the right track …)

I’ve spent a fair amount of time writing about the Negative; I hope I can be as long and strong with the Positive.

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”

Willie Nelson  Country-Western Singer

Let’s see, we have …

*Acceptance *Commitment *Confidence *Contentment *Courage *Discipline *Faith *Forgiveness *Generosity *Gratitude *Happiness *Honesty *Humility *Involvement *Joy *Kindness *Love *Loyalty *Patience *Perseverance *Respect * Self-control *Self-esteem *Tolerance *Trust *Zeal

I’ll pick a few of these that can help to offset the negative emotions that we looked at before. Interestingly enough, all of these positive attributes are more actions than emotions, except for Joy, Happiness, and part of Love.  Hmmm …. the need for action begs for commitment … to actually do something.  I’ve got to believe that we can do this.

“Occasional big positive experiences–say, a birthday bash–are nice. But they don’t make the necessary impact on our brain to override the tilt to negativity. It takes frequent small positive experiences to tip the scales toward happiness.”

Hara Marano,  ‘Our Brain’s Negative Bias’

Psychology Today: June 20, 2003

If this is so, then we have a huge challenge ahead of us. Suppose you do five little good deeds in a day … maybe open the door for a lady, let a merging car in ( with a wave, score 2), make a funny quip that makes someone laugh (score 2 if you make two people laugh!), bag your own groceries so that the person behind you doesn’t have to wait in line so long, and tell your wife or husband that she/he’s a cutie … you get the idea.

“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)  English Playwright and Poet

Let’s say that each one of those five deeds gives you a small block of goodness that you can use to build your House of Positive Energy. You lay these blocks tightly together with appreciation. Those good deeds meant a lot to you. When you get home and sit down for dinner, your child spills his milk on the table, not for the first time …. and you blow up. You get angry with him and you bark. That one burst of anger just wiped the five stones off your structure of goodness and scattered them in disarray.

“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it”

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)   American Statesman, Scientist, Philosopher, and Inventor.

I know it’s not fair, but those are the rules of the game. It’s kind of like the stock market … you take a lot of time building up your investments, and in one or two trading sessions, those investments dive over the cliff. What goes up, comes down much faster.

So the key to building your House of Positive Energy (acronym HOPE) is to lay a stable foundation, a foundation of solid attributes that will be able to hold the smaller, everyday deed blocks in place.

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. There is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”

Henry David Thoreau quotes (1817-1862)  American Essayist and Philosopher

Let’s start with the foundation first, and build our castles strong.

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