Positive Thinking

Positive thinking is a mental and emotional attitude that focuses on the bright side of life and expects positive results. A positive person anticipates happiness, health and success, and believes that she/ he can overcome any obstacle and difficulty.

Positive thinking is not accepted by everyone. The swiftly changing world of today gives more importance to mental attitudes such as skepticism, cynicism and pessimism. Therefore, some people consider positive thinking as nonsense and ridicule people who follow it. But there are a growing number of people who accept positive thinking as a fact, and believe in its effectiveness.

It seems that this subject is gaining popularity, as evidenced by many books, lectures and courses about it in the recent past. An excellent example are the Vivekananda Institute of Human Excellence courses. Many corporate houses are also appointing quality trainers to train their employees on this particular subject.

To use it in our life, we need more than just to be aware of its existence. We need to adapt the attitude of positive thinking in everything we do.

In mathematics, we have integers. Integers include the entire set of negative numbers, positive numbers and the number zero. Say, I have the number "zero" with me. I have the option of moving in two directions based on my choice of adding positive or negative numbers. Negative numbers take me backward on the number line. But, even the smallest positive number when added can only take me forward.

This analogy gives us an idea of positive and negative thoughts and their effect on our lives. Negative thoughts are those that take us backward, weaken us, degenerate us and only take us to misery and death. They keep us from achieving our goals, and realizing our best potential. Positive thoughts help us become stronger, confident and build a prosperous life. Positive thoughts always nourish us in at least one of the levels of physical, mental, intellectual and spiritual.

For example, take a boy who dreams to win the 100m gold medal at the Olympics. Now, he begins thinking, "No Indian has ever been able to achieve such a feat. It is extremely difficult and no mean task. It doesn't look like it is within my reach." Do you think with such thoughts he will achieve or even move one step closer to his goal? He will feel dejected and soon give up his dream. But, if he thinks "It is certainly one of the most difficult accomplishments and involves the strictest discipline, hard work and devotion. I'm up to the task and shall exert myself to my utmost to achieve this dream of mine" he will begin with strength, vigour and confidence. He will move forward.

Negative thoughts like doubt, fear, anxiety etc., weaken us and not only stop us from moving forward, they also degenerate us and push us in a negative direction like the negative numbers. Positive thoughts like faith, self-confidence, fearlessness, compassion etc., help us surge ahead with great force like the positive numbers.

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