What happens when you put yourself into the mindset that is guided by faith and not ruled by fear?
In the book "Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway," Susan Jeffers has a chapter called "Pollyanna Rides Again," and it's about the power of positive thinking. She says that "it is reported that over 90% of what we worry about never happens. That means that our negative worries have about a 10% chance of being correct."
So that means that if we have a negative view of taking chances and are always focusing on being "realistic," then we won't take a chance. But there was only a 10% chance that the negative "realistic" view was even possible. it was more probable that we weren't being realistic at all.
In Jack Canfield's book "The Success Principles," he says, "Roadblocks are simply obstacles that the world throws at you. They are simple circumstances you need to deal with in order to move forward."
So that would be a "faith not fear" way of thinking. It's just a roadblock.
We all have roadblocks in our lives. There is always a new challenge. I have found in the business world that rather than talking about issues, people refer to opportunities. It sounds better. To say, what is the opportunity here, sounds much more promising than what's the issue, what's wrong, what is the problem.
So you might think about a time that you faced a roadblock and turned it into an opportunity. Maybe there was a difficult circumstance, maybe you moved, started a new career, launched a business, or learned to ride a bicycle or to swim. There were roadblocks, but you didn't see them.
You didn't see them because you were guided by faith and not ruled by fear.
You might want to write a story about that.
This I Believe is an international project engaging people in writing and sharing essays describing the core values that guide their daily lives. Over 60,000 of these essays, written by people from all walks of life, are archived on the website, www.thisibelieve.org. Edward R. Murrow began the radio program in the 1950's.
I recently purchased the book version which contains 75 of these essays. Reading it, I was inspired and awed. These are 500-word essays that express the core beliefs that guide everyday life. They demonstrate how different we all are. And at the same time, they seemed to tell me how similar we all are too.
In one of the books I have on my coffee table, by Michael Bernard Beckwith, he says, There is a distinction between personality and character. The word character is from the Old French caractere meaning "imprint on the soul." while the word personality suggests veneer and is connected with the Latin word persona which was a mask worn by actors. He says, "it's easy to tell if you are living from character or personality: If things aren't going your way, personality pouts while character remains unruffled and learns from the experience. When you are not in psychologically or emotionally safe territory, personality panics. Character, on the other hand, rides the vicissitudes of life with even-mindedness. "
It seemed to me that, reading through the essays in the book This I Believe, the writers were expressing character rather than personality. The beliefs expressed came from that place that weathered the storm, crossed the bridge, saw the higher path.
Writing about what you believe would be a thoughtful process. It might be a good Christmas gift to your children, or to your grandchildren. You might want ot give it a try.
Maybe your To Do list is a mile long and too deep for you to even stick your toe in the water without drowning. It’s a list that has been growing for months and the more you grasp after whittling it down, the longer it grows. One thing leads to another, you tell yourself, feeling exhausted. Day after day, you move along, pretty satisfied with your life, but never feeling like you are getting it all done.
Maybe the good news is that you will never get it all done. Try as hard as you might, the more you pile on wanting things, the longer the list will grow. So what do you do?
You take the list and give it a vacation. You take a Getaway Day.
Have you done that lately? It is something you can write about. What led up to it? What was going on? Why were you compelled to just chuck it all, the whole list and just take off.
It might have been for an afternoon, or a morning. Maybe you just stayed at home and allowed yourself an entire afternoon to read a good book that’s been sitting on your bedside table for the past three months collecting the dust that you’ve been too busy to wipe away.
I recently had a getaway day. It happened by accident. On Sunday morning, I woke up early and went to the Farmer’s Market. I wandered through the stalls. The day was sunny and fine. There was a musician playing even so early as 8 a.m. I had a cup of hot coffee in my hand. I bought beets and potatoes and chard and beautiful round crunchy Asian pears as well as some of the last of the fat tomatoes.
I walked to my car. I drove away.
But as I went down the drive and onto the street, on my way to church and gardening and house-cleaning catch-up I was struck on impulse and turned right on the freeway instead of going straight.
Forty-five minutes later, I was sitting in a coffee shop with a beautiful pastry and the morning paper, in a small town in the wine country. I glanced through the paper and then had a chance to take a deep breath and look out the window at the leaves turning crinkly brown colors against the gazebo where a band must play on summer afternoons.
It was an escape from the week, an escape from the chores. They could wait for another day. I finished my coffee and pastry and wandered around the town. It was an overcast day, clouds in a shadow, wrapping the town and me in a cocoon. I went to the bookshop and sat in a chair and took the time to read the beginnings of several books before I made my decisions on what to purchase.
I walked some more, went to an art gallery. At lunchtime I found a little café down a side street and it looked like it was populated with locals rather than the well-heeled tourists most common to the town. I went in. They had a smoked duck sandwich on the menu for only $12. I asked the waiter about it. He said they made it themselves right there in the kitchen. I ordered it and I was not disappointed. It was lean and tender and there was a little gruyere cheese melted on the whole wheat toast so that it was just mouth watering.
Very satisfied with my adventure, I felt relaxed and ready to return home.
The list did wait for me. But I was able to cross a whole bunch of things right off of it and read one of my books on the sofa instead.
As you read this, you might be thinking of a time that you took off and went somewhere or did something on impulse. You could write a story about that time.
In my world, I work at a day job at a computer all day, and I love to cook and garden too. I work out at a gym several times during the week too, but it's still not enough.
Thinking back 50 years ago or even 25 before computers became so prevalent, people walked more, did things outside more and moved more in general. Out bodies weren't meant to spend 10-12 hours or more sitting in front of a little screen.
But being what it is, then solutions need to be found that can help us to still move around while we are doing things that we enjoy, like writing online and blogging, or doing other things at the computer. The time will come eventually, and tools will become more economically feasible to enable people to type at a screen and still engage in comfortable movement, rather than sitting. I'm all for that!
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