“To be candid, some people have given positive thinking a bad name. I can’t stand to hear some gung-ho individual say that with positive thinking you can just do ‘anything.’ If you think about that one for a moment, you recognize the absurdity of it.”—Zig Ziglar
I prefer the idea of “possibility thinking”. I have read Think and Grow Rich (Norman Vincent Peale) a couple of times in my life, and, frankly, it causes me to think of Rodin’s “The Thinker” in the movie, The Night at the Museum—“I’m thinking. I’m thinking…”. Positive thinking is the first step, but success requires action. I believe “’Can’t’ never did anything”. I believe we can do anything we desire, but it doesn’t happen with positive thinking alone.
I appreciated Robert H. Schuller’s books on Possibility Thinking. He broke down lofty goals in smaller attainable parts. We can do anything –given time, opportunity, and, above all, effort.
Jesus spoke that if you have “faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move” (Matthew 17:20, NIV). Now I am not naive to believe that I can stand at the foot of a mountain and tell it to move and it will move, but I know that, given the need and desire, I can move the mountain a stone at a time. I don’t believe that it was Jesus’ intention that we should run around commanding the geography to change. The point is that we can do that which we are called upon to do—that no obstacle should stop us.
I think that, if I had to depend on “positive thinking”, I would be permanently stuck where I am. I do, however, know that where there is a will there is a way. I just have to deliberately act.
We are in a time of great social struggle. (Honestly, what age has not been?) We want change. Words and wishes, however, will change nothing. We must act. And action begins with personal change.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow!
Carpe momento!