No. 592 - STAYING POSITIVE IN A NEGATIVE WORLD

No. 592

Jim Davidson - NEWSPAPER COLUMN

STAYING POSITIVE IN A NEGATIVE WORLD

There are days and then there are days. As my friend Dave McCree often says, "Some days are diamonds while others are stones." Life is made up of good days and not-so-good days. Some days are successful, while others are failures, that is in terms of being productive.

This brought to mind a wonderful little poem written by Heartsill Wilson titled, "A New Day." It begins, "This is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. This day is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something I have traded for it. Therefore, I want it to be good and not evil, gain and not loss, success and not failure, in order that I shall not regret the price I paid for it."

In view of world events and the constant bombardment of negative news by the national media, I don't know about you, but I find it difficult to stay positive most of the time. I say most of the time, because I do not know of anyone who is positive every waking moment of the day. That is just human nature. However, I try to stay positive and look on the bright side of life as much as I possibly can. If you have negative or bad days and experience more than your share of down times, I have some thoughts along these lines that you may find helpful.

To begin, allow me to share something a friend sent me the other day about a cancer survivor titled simply, "Very Important." There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed that she had only three hairs on her head. "Well," she said, "I think I'll braid my hair today." So she did and she had a wonderful day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head. "Hmmm," she said, "I think I'll part my hair down the middle today." So she did and she had a grand day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head. "Well," she said, "Today I'm going to wear my hair in a pony tail." So she did and she had a fun-filled day. The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed there wasn't a single hair on her head. "YEAH!" she exclaimed, "I don't have to fix my hair today."

Yes, our attitude is very important, even in the face of tragic circumstances.

But back to the subject at hand, "Staying Positive in a Negative World." In order to stay positive most of the time, I want to give you the bottom line first, and I hope you will ponder what I am going to say and let it soak in. Our attitude is controlled by our thinking and, to a large degree, our thinking is controlled by what goes into our mind. If we are thinking happy, positive thoughts most of the time, our attitude will reflect that. The reverse is also true. If we think bad, negative thoughts most of the time, our attitude will reflect that as well, and if not corrected we just become a negative person.

As human beings, we are affected to some degree by genetics and our environment, but by and large the human mind is impartial. That's the point we should see. The human mind does not care one way or another as to what we program or permit to enter our mind. It just acts on what is there and this is what controls our attitude. The old computer term G.I.G.O. certainly applies here: garbage in, garbage out.

We need to stay current about what is going on in the world, but when we spend hours soaking up bad news, it is going to affect us adversely. The same thing applies to people we spend most of our time with. If it's family, there is often little we can do about it, but we need to know what is happening so we can deliberately seek a source of positive news and relationships. Reading my Bible each day and spending time in prayer helps me.---

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Jim Davidson is a motivational speaker and syndicated columnist. You may contact him at 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, Ark. 72034. To support literacy, buy his book, "Learning, Earning & Giving Back.")