The battle for positivity

Why is it that fear and doubt can creep into your mind seemingly so much easier than faith and belief?

And when it gets there, fear and doubt, why is it that it has so much to cling to; seemingly endlessly holding on to your every breath.

And in truth, what do most people really have to be afraid of?

I for example look around myself and see a comfortable home, an amazing computer that I’m now using, children, a lovely wife waiting for me when I’m finished at the end of the day, a job that greets me every morning, and maybe not enough money to make me wealthy but certainly enough to make ends meet.

As I think of my wife and my children, some of whom are here with me and others who are around the world living their lives, I realize that I am not any of those people out there who wake up each day alone and wonder why.

As I gripe in preparation for another day on the job, I am not one of the millions who would give anything, for a job -any job.

There is so much more to believe in, have faith in and be thankful for, and yet, here we are…

If you’re a fan of the story Peter Pan, you’ve heard the phrase “faith trust and pixie dust”. Although I’m not sure about the pixie dust part, I’m quite positive that faith and trust are somewhat important in the further success of our lives, our livelihood, and in where we hope to get in this world.

I think that sometimes it’s important to remember that feelings are just that, they’re feelings. When we feel afraid, that doesn’t mean we have to be afraid. When we feel doubt and uncertainty and when we feel lost, it doesn’t mean we have to be lost. We can feel lost, and afraid, and uncertain and yet make choices and follow paths based upon certainty and courage. Sometimes, when we do this, we are bound to make mistakes. It’s been said many times in many circles that making a mistake is the only way you know you’re making progress. Making a mistake in reality is leaving behind the wrong way, one more time –one less mistake to make in the future.

Yet in my opinion, this brings us back to the beginning of this conversation. That is, that fear and doubt and uncertainty are sometimes so much easier to feel, and so much harder to lose.

I think at this point we have to consider practice and exercise.

Think about it for a minute! Those of us who indulge like me are well aware of the concept of exercising our muscles. We jog, climb the Stairmaster, join in spin classes, and any number of other physical activities all for the purpose of exercising our muscles, strengthening our muscles, expanding our lungs and strengthening our heart.

Anyone who has ever gone to school knows that the harder you work and the more you practice the better you will do. You cannot go to school, at least for most people, and not do homework -it takes practice.

These are a couple of common examples of things that we oftentimes take for granted; accepting that practice and exercise are crucial to success.

And yet when it comes to our emotions, when it comes to our feelings, when it comes to faith and courage, we assume that here we have no control.

I believe that just as we need to exercise our muscles we need to exercise faith. Just as we need to practice our lessons so that we can remember that 2+2 equals four, we need to practice all the rest of it as well.  We need to have a good attitude, practice believing, practice making healthy choices.

I’m sure many of you out there have been down this road many times. You get a negative thought about something; who knows where it came from or what started it, but it creeps in. It forms in the back of your mind and plants itself in that space right behind your heart and just above your stomach. It feeds on your willingness to doubt. It thrives on your lack of confidence. It can find all kinds of excuses why it should be there, and very few reasons why it should not –and you are the one who lets it in and allows it to be.

The next thing you know this simple thought, supported by nothing more than a feeling, turns into the dominant thought of your entire life.

Next thing you know, as far as you’re concerned, you’re going to lose your job, your children think you’re stupid, and your wife is bored with you because you’re fat and old and ugly. You the reader can plug-in your own negativity; you know what I’m talking about.

Sometimes I think it’s important to remember that this is the last chance you’ll ever have to live this day. Once this day is done, it will never come back. You will never have another chance. There are no do overs. You cannot go back to go and start the game again. And if you accept this course of thinking; except this as just another day, and guess what: chances are real good tomorrow will be exactly the same.

I’m not saying it’s easy. And God knows I’m not saying I have all the answers. Even as I write this I feel myself filled with fear that this will be way too rambling to even make sense. But I’ve had this positivity proven to me to work too many times for it not to be true. If we choose faith even if we don’t believe it at the time, but choose faith anyway, and then practice and exercise and work at it, then we are only setting ourselves up to believe in this, instead of the negative.

If we choose to believe in ourselves and move forward confidently with our dreams and our ideals and our goals and put every effort and every ounce of ourselves into what we’re trying to accomplish, and, learn to forgive ourselves when we make mistakes, we are going to make more progress and we are going to accomplish more than if we allow doubt to keep us from doing anything.

I’ve always been a religious man. I do go to a church and I try to follow the doctrine of that church. But I guess I’m more a man of faith than religion. Sometimes I get lost in all of the rules and regulations and responsibilities and things that organized religion bring along with it. I have faith in Jesus Christ I know there is a God and I have felt the Holy Spirit. Although I may not be the greatest in the sense of religion, I have tried to have a great faith in that which the religion is based upon.

On that note, I’ve always tried to follow among other things one basic philosophy. That is: if you look around the world at all the things that God created, you will see many wondrous and great creations. You will see everything from small single cell organisms that we can’t even see all the way up to huge elephants and whales. There are millions of animals, just as many plants, and fish in the sea of a multitude that we can’t even count. There is a sense of organization that supports it all. There is a world that spins to create gravity to keep us grounded. There is air to breathe and plants and things to support us so that we won’t go hungry. And it all spins and stays on this little ball for the only purpose that we may have a place to live, things to do and something to eat. And out of all God’s creations mankind is the most complex, and unique creation of all the things that he made. No other creature can think and feel and dream the way that we do. No other creation can take its environment and manipulate it and change it to its own desire. And no other creation can look up to the heavens as we do, recognize that there is a God and thank him for it every day. I’m proud to say that I am one of those creations and as such I carry with me a great sense of responsibility. Not the great sense that says “look how wonderful I am”, but a great sense of responsibility that says that I have been blessed with much because I could’ve been something a lot simpler and smaller.

For some reason, God did not make me a tree, or a dog, or fly, or any other one of the millions of simple creatures he created: creatures that are important but nowhere near as complex and capable as mankind.

Furthermore, I am 53 years old. That’s not ancient, but it says that I’ve been around a while. When so many others have passed on for a myriad of reasons, I have been allowed to live in spite of stupid mistakes, in spite of not always taking very good care of myself, and in spite of all the negativity that I’m writing about. Where so many others have faltered and failed, I have carried on. If you are reading this, so have you. You may be older, or younger. You have made different mistakes, but in spite of them, you like me are still carrying on

If God believed in us enough to make us this thing called man and help me get this far, we need to believe in ourselves enough to go the rest of the way.