Positive Thinking

Never under-estimate the power of positive thinking. When someone is cynical, they don’t grow. When someone is cynical, they refuse opportunities. When someone is cynical, they expect defeat and failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Having been raised in the late 1950s and 1960s, I came from a generation of American parents who were pessimistic and cynical about life-goals. The safe path was the only one they took. The dreamers of generations before my parents did not believe that failure was a foregone conclusion. My parents were the children of families that survived the “Great Depression” and those survivors went through some mighty tough times. Imagine standing in bread lines and at soup kitchens just to get one small bowl of something hot to eat. Your great-grandparents might have stood in one of those lines. The primary difference in America of the depression era was that most people had FAITH and HOPE for the future. They believed that hard times built character and did not last forever. They believed that to triumph over adversity helped people become strong. Such things prepared you for success. Today, the world is still a competitive place, yet, parents are coddling their kids and insulating them from the sorts of challenges that build character and make them resilient, even tough. There is an old saying: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Do you face adversity, or flea from it? Think about it.