The Power Of The Positive

[LupCheong]

You and me... we can choose to be happy or not. We can choose to succeed or fail, scald, frown on or blame others. We can choose to complicate life or simplify it. There is no doubt the responsibility is ours.

Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘A man is just about as happy as he makes up his mind to be’ and Dr Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra appear to agree.

Both Dyer and Chopra say that we have, on average 60,000 to 62,000 thoughts each day. Around 4,000 of these are positive, the remainder are negative. This means that, if we want to advance ourselves or enhance our well-being, the balance between positive and negative in our lives is most likely tipped in the wrong direction. In other words we are making up our minds to be unhappy.

To be happy we have to begin to reverse the cycle. To begin this we have to look at what we’re doing.

Ghandi once said, ‘Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.’ It is simple wisdom from a wise man, but what will taking his words on board mean?

I think what Ghandi’s words could mean is that we need to become much more aware of what we do. Many of the negative thoughts we have don’t even originate within us, but come to us as a result of what we do. They enter your mind through outside sources, and we allow this to happen because we’ve never stopped to think.

Here are some quick questions that relate to the power of positive - that will help. Mark them 1-10, ten being the highest.

1. How positive are the TV programmes you watch? Do they uplift you, make you laugh or inspire change?

2. How positive is the news you watch or read? Is it based on war and scandal or peace, love and harmony?

3. How positive is your music? Is it all about break-up, anger and dysfunction or love and hope?

4. How positive are the movies you watch? Are they about a better world or about destruction and violence?

5. How positive are your friends? Do they moan or look to create change things for the better?

Why are these important questions?

They’re important questions because we think ‘I want to be happy thoughts’ and perhaps often give off that ’I want to be happy vibe’ but then we go and contradict what we say and what we think by what we do. TV, radio, news media, musical lyrics, movies and friends or family talking about woes all have a profound influence on how positive we feel. And if our life isn’t going where we hoped it would, then we need to change the things that influence our minds.

How?

We can change what influences us by learning to manage the incoming content to our minds by our choice. Turn on the TV now. Watch it for 2 minutes and decide if watching this TV programme will help you achieve anything one of those dreams you keep locked away in the back of your mind. Pick up a newspaper, hold it by your heart and ask, Will I feel uplifted if I read this? Ask: Is this music about happiness or sadness?

Once we become more aware of what were taking in we have the power to choose. We can choose a positive news publication to read, change our internet default setting to a site that uplifts, encourages and empowers, tune into a radio station which will help us be more, find positive books and movies to watch… The list goes on.

[cock brand]

Everyday, when we listen to the radio, watch TV, read the newspapers, except for the Sales-You-Been-Waiting-For Ad, all other piece of news seems to be just bad news - natural disaster, financial disaster, economic disaster, buildings collapsing, companies collapsing, banks collapsing, worldwide.

I want to be stay positive and be happy. Can I? Can I ignore all these pieces of news and pretend that its non of my business, nothing is going to happen to me. For escapism, we go for movies, watch silly TV sitcoms, listen to some nice music and sing along, but after that, we come back to reality again, back to the real world. When I lost some money in my investment, I just thought, well I can recover this later. So, basically I am still quite a positive person; yes, surely one day everythings gonna be fine.

I want to be happy, now and forever. I want to retire a happy person with no worries, can do things I always wanted to do. And I also want to retire early.

To achieve this, I must be healthy and financial independent.

To achieve this, I must save enough money.

To achieve this, I must work very hard now.

I must also work smart and excel, to get things done, to close that deal, to get that post.

So here I am, perpetually caught in the neverending mad chases and crazy datelines.

So am I really happy and carefree now? I dont really know.

But I know I can only be a very happy and carefree person when I retire.

For now? Well, as the saying goes......人在江湖，身不由己。

[Asyrus]

taken from "小人物的心声" (loosely translates as 'the voice of a common man') -

(yes...national government propaganda...I know... )

"我从来就不在乎

It has never bothered me　

自己不是一个大人物　

that I am not someone famous

因为平凡也是一种幸福,

Because it is also a blessing to be just mundane

看到名人总是忙忙碌碌　

Seeing how the famed slog and toil

我的时间由我控制　

yet my time is my own

平凡日子一样会充实"

Life everyday is still equally fufilling

* I apologise as this is not the best translation, but you get the drift

Edited March 5, 2009 by Asyrus

[cock brand]

Yeah, I wish to live this way too, Asyrus.

But my subordinate do.

They leave work on time, has little responsibilities and always complacent.

When they reach 55 years old and look at their CPF balance, I wonder if they will ever regret for not working a bit harder when they were young.

我也知 : 自足常乐，可是 还没足，何来乐?

[Asyrus]

Aiyah...thats why I say lor....

National govt propaganda...

If everyone is the boss, who's gonna do all the shit?

[cock brand]

How?

We can change what influences us by learning to manage the incoming content to our minds by our choice. Turn on the TV now. Watch it for 2 minutes and decide if watching this TV programme will help you achieve anything one of those dreams you keep locked away in the back of your mind. Pick up a newspaper, hold it by your heart and ask, Will I feel uplifted if I read this? Ask: Is this music about happiness or sadness?

Once we become more aware of what were taking in we have the power to choose. We can choose a positive news publication to read, change our internet default setting to a site that uplifts, encourages and empowers, tune into a radio station which will help us be more, find positive books and movies to watch… The list goes on.

Thats a group of young people in my work place.

Almost every lunchtime, they will gather in the meeting rooms to lunch in.

While lunching, they will exchange and read gossip tabloids, fashion magazines, TV/movie news etc.

The radio will be tuned to the current pop hits channel.

They will also scan through the newspaper for the "most worth" meals, looking for which shop is having a sales etc.

Thats the only thing they ever read - all happy news.

They will talk about their movie idols, the TV show last night, where they should get their lunch tomorow.

They are totally oblivious to current affairs.

They are a bunch of very happy people.

难得糊涂

[Guest fatty]

Thats a group of young people in my work place.

Almost every lunchtime, they will gather in the meeting rooms to lunch in.

While lunching, they will exchange and read gossip tabloids, fashion magazines, TV/movie news etc.

The radio will be tuned to the current pop hits channel.

They will also scan through the newspaper for the "most worth" meals, looking for which shop is having a sales etc.

Thats the only thing they ever read - all happy news.

They will talk about their movie idols, the TV show last night, where they should get their lunch tomorow.

They are totally oblivious to current affairs.

They are a bunch of very happy people.

难得糊涂

This type of people are important at this moment......to boost the nation's economy.