I have been reading a lot about positive thinking and even talking to a lot of people about it and today I came across a beautiful quote by Lindsey Vonn, “Life changes very quickly, in a positive way, if you let it.”
If we let it – being the takeaway from that quote. In the past I have tried to decipher this by saying Why would I not want my life to be positive. Of course I want my life to be positive, but “its not me” is where I was stuck. For instance, I always had difference of opinions with my father at work. I still do. And I always attributed that to being the reason of us not getting along or me being in a bad mood. And hence he was the cause of my negativity.
It was never me. I would never own it up and keep justifying how it starts with one disagreement and then one thing leads to another and it just turns out to be a very bad day.
But I m glad that although I still have disagreements with him, (most times) I am able to shed off the negative thoughts provoked or surfaced due to that.
Another example that I can share is about a discussion I had with a young graduate about his career. He seemed lost. Sincerity and working hard was not a problem for him. His problem was that he had no goals set for himself. He believed he was taking Life as it comes. Further into the conversation, I realized that this was an escape route for him in order to deal with his fear of failure.
I think and again I say this from my own experience that Fear of Failure pushes the most capable people to maintain the status quo. When there is no goal, there is no accountability, there is no reason for anyone to question your achievements and capabilities.
Unfortunately, lot of parents impose their expectations, their aspirations on their kids. As a kid I remember that scoring good marks in the exam was equivalent to being a smart and intelligent child. Not the truth but that’s how most people from my generation were brought up. I am not sure if it has changed a lot.
As ridiculous as it is we all know that every child CANNOT score great marks in every subject in every exam and every child CANNOT bang the most coveted 1st Rank!
I believe this slowly erodes the child’s positive attitude. Constant criticism, constant comparison with an “apparent” brighter kid, constantly competing with peers leads to them forgetting their interests, their originality. They tend to get into a race to prove their worth not just to their parents, teachers and people they look up to – but themselves.
This is just one example of expectations of grades during school times but we can relate with this to a lot of things in life like peer pressure, relationships, outer appearances like looks & weight, social media pressures, earning more money etc etc etc …and its all about proving one’s self worth to ourselves under the pretext of irrelevant and futile things like acceptance from society.
I believe, the root cause of the negative attitude in our mind is a notion that constantly tells us, ‘You are not good enough’. And we start believing it and this is how we live our life.
That negative attitude has to be uprooted but its not a one-time activity. This is a daily constant cleansing process. I am sure each one of us tries their level best to overcome the negative thoughts with positive thoughts. If someone reading this blog has managed to do it, awesome! But a lot of us (including me) get derailed. That little devilish voice creeps in and tells us – There is no point, you are just not good enough. We need to shut that voice completely. To ensure that there is no self doubt and not a single negative thought penetrates into our mind, we need to train our mind accordingly.
Things which seem unthinkable, unimaginable, difficult, complex, hurtful, painful are all to be embraced and assimilated with the same positive energy. It maybe difficult but its the only way to peace and a truly beautiful positive life
I would like to share a beautiful video conceptualized by Rob Dial on Why positive thinking doesn’t work.
I cannot think of a better way to explain this. Its perfect and conveys the exact meaning accurately. Also, its so simple to relate and remind ourselves that we need to cleanse constantly.
I share this with the hope to make a positive impact on at least one person reading this blog. There is a lot of negativity in the world. This is my attempt to help someone find their path to cleansing and eventually peace and happiness.