How to Develop Positive
Thinking
Negative thinking can all too easily overwhelm one’s better
self, therefore, concerted effort is required to keep it at bay. For positive thinking you need only to ‘open your eyes’.
Positive thinking, the source of all kinds of good things, is the most important habit in a man or a woman. It ensures good health and a sound mind, it enables you to plan competently and helps you in crisis management. Indeed, positive thinking results in super achievement.
Positive thinking is the other name for natural thinking. Positive thinking cannot be acquired from the external world. It is your inner nature that provides a reservoir of positive thought. Preserve your inborn nature and you will surely emerge as a positive thinker. Every human being is born with great potential. Allow your potential to unfold and you will become a positive thinker in the perfect sense of the word.
Why are men and women so often incapable of positive thinking? The sole reason for this is that they fail to draw upon the reservoir nature has given them. Everyone is born with eyes, but if he closes his eyes, he will not be able to see anything. The same is true of positive thinking; it comes naturally to every individual, provided he does not ‘close his eyes’ to it.
The opposite of positive thinking, negative thinking, is like shutting one’s eyes. If you want to live as a positive thinker, try to distance yourself from negative thought. Positive thinking enhances the inner qualities of every human being, while negative thinking does the very opposite. Negative thinking can all too easily overwhelm one’s better self, therefore, concerted effort is required to keep it at bay. For positive thinking you need only to ‘open your eyes’.
The problem here is that we are living in society. Man is a social animal. He is bound to live in society. What is society? Society is a construct whereby human beings live in congregation for mutual benefit. But all of its members have their differences. Difference is a part of nature. Every man is born as Mr. Different and every woman is born as Ms. Different. Indeed, society is an amalgam of highly disparate elements.
It is this difference that creates problems. When you face a situation which is not in accordance with your desires, you become irritated. Then a chain reaction sets in—leading to anger, vengefulness, negative thinking, and violence. It is this phenomenon that prevents you from thinking positively.
Then, the other problem is that everyone is prone to conditioning. The process of conditioning starts with every negative experience. And, conditioning gradually becomes a part of the unconscious mind. The occasional negative experience, because of the conditioning process, comes to affect one whole side of our personality, until a time comes when it becomes integral to one’s personality. One loses sight of the fact that it is an evil of which one should rid oneself as soon as possible.
To overcome this problem, one has to learn the art of remaining silent. When any negative thought comes to your mind, do not react. Say nothing. Make your mind empty for a moment. Then the whole matter will settle down. If someone makes a harsh remark about you, you should not take it seriously. Things not taken seriously do not become registered in the mind and thus do not continue to rankle.
Fortunately, nature is very helpful towards us in this regard. Apart from other qualities, there is a unique quality in human nature, that is, the ability to cool down. The only condition is that we should give nature a chance. When we are faced with some unwanted situation, our powers of reasoning are generally swamped by a flood of negative thoughts. But if we can only keep quiet, the cooling down faculty of its own dispels the negativity. It changes the direction of the flood and within seconds, it is gone. Keep silent for thirty seconds. Everything will return to normal, as if nothing at all had happened.
