Are you positive or negative?

From time to time I like to utilize sonderful stories to illustrate points that I teach. Here is one of those stories.

I heard the story about a king in Africa who had a close friend with whom he had grown up.

The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that occurred
in his life (positive or negative) and remarking, "This is good!"

One day, the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off.

Examining the situation, the friend remarked as usual, "This is good!" to which the king replied, "No, this is NOT good!" and proceeded to have his friend thrown into prison.

About a year later, the king was hunting in an area wherein he should have known not to hunt. Cannibals captured him and took them to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake. As they came close to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone who was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him on his way.

As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb
and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the prison to speak with his friend.

"You were right", he said,"it was good that my thumb was blown off."

And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened.

"And so I am very sorry for sending you to prison for so long. It was bad for me to do this."

"No," his friend replied, "this is good!"

"What do you mean, 'this is good!'" said the King aghast. "How could it be good that I sent my friend to prison for a year?!"

"Well, if I had NOT been in jail, I would have been with you, and I would have been eaten!"

I hope you enjoyed this story and can see how a positive outlook may even one day save your life.

That's all for today!

May you be blessed always and in all ways!

Harry

Can you create a positive world by spreading negativity?

Sounds like a really illogical question, right? Or at least it seems like the answer is a pretty straight forward, NO! Yet that is what I hear from journalists that I talk to. You see a majority of them I have spoken with say they are in journalism to help change the world, in a positive way, but how is that possible when most of what they report on is negative?

It has been proven in numerous psychological studies that people exposed to negative images will have negative thoughts about the world. That seems logical to me. If you are constantly bombarded with negative images, it has to have an effect and not a positive one. I have yet to hear anyone say, after watching the news, "Well that was refreshing!" No, what I usually hear is "That was depressing!"

Why is it spiritual teachers will tell you that the easiest and quickest way to improve your life is to not watch the news? It's because most of the news programming is filled with negative images and stories.

Advertisers understand that their commercials have a psychological effect on consumers which, is why commercials are filled with mostly positive images and/or beneficial suggestions that appeal to consumers in some way. Buy this car and you will be powerful or help the environment. Drink this drink or use this body wash and you will attract the opposite sex.

Why is it then that journalists do not seem to get it? They constantly report on the negative and wonder why people are so negative. I know we do get the occasional feel good story of the day but shouldn't the reporting of the "good" news be the norm if we want to change the world for the better?

The next question I have is, when did all this start? Has the news always been negative? If so, what do we need to do to create a paradigm shift in journalism? If not, when did it start? How did it start? And, how do we change it?

I really believe the shift has to come from the journalists and journalism schools themselves. Someone, somewhere has got to recognize that they are source of the problem and do something to create the shift. Don't get me wrong, I know bad things happen but not to the extent that it is portrayed.

I had to chuckle at the headlines I saw this morning after Hilliary Clinton's speech last night. Personally, I am not a big Hillary fan but she delivered a powerful, uplifting, emotional and positive speech of her support for Barack Obama. But what were the headlines I saw today? Hillary Did Not Do Enough to Convince Her Supporters and Hillary Not Persuasive Enough. I have an idea, how about these headlines? Hillary Tells Supporters to Throw Their Full Support to Obama or Hillary Supports Obama All The Way.

I know if we all start to focus on what is good with life, our community, our country and our world, then we will make positive changes. Everything will get better, if we can just get people to focus on the positive.

That's all for today!

May you be blessed always and in all ways.

Harry

Are you argumentative to a fault?

Are you argumentative to a fault? Do you feel that you always have to be right? There obviously is a time and place for debate and sometimes when your character or integrity is called into question, I could see defending your honor.

However, are you always on the defensive? Do you allow space for others opinions? Can you take constructive criticism and use it to grow?

Here are a couple quotes that further illustrate what I am trying to get across here:

"Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy."

"The more arguments you win, the less friends you will have."

I have found that the more I can honor an other's point of view the less I have to defend anything myself but there is a limit.

I can recall a guy I knew when I was a Criminal Investigator for the Army. He worked in the prosecutor's office and was constantly debating and arguing the most minute points of just about anything. And no matter what side you took, he always seemed to fall on the opposite side. In most cases, I do not think he actually was on the other side, he just liked to argue in an effort to show off his debating skills. He was an excellent prosecutor but could not leave his debating and arguing inside the courtroom.

It got to the point where no one even wanted to talk to him out of fear that he would start one of his "debates"! I saw where people would just absolutely avoid him, if they could and if they had to talk to him, they would always have an excuse to cut off the conversation. He was not invited to the office gatherings after work. He was basically shunned.

Well, one day I was dropping off some case files for review when he called me into his office. I cringed and started to come up with some excuse for having to leave, when I said to myself, "this is a golden opportunity to say something." I figured if he started one of his "debates" it would give me an opening.

It took all of about 10 seconds for him to start the "debate". I immediately stopped him and asked, "Why do you always want to argue and debate people?"

By his shocked look and reaction, I could tell that he had probably never been asked that question.

He responded rather loudly: "I DON'T!"

I said, "Really! You are even being argumentative about the question I just asked."

To make a very long story short. I shut the door to his office and we talked for quite awhile. When we were done, he thanked me for pointing out things to him that no one else had ever taken the time to do. He then went out and gathered the whole office together and apologized for his behavior. He worked really hard over the next several weeks to change and even told his colleagues to please point out when he was slipping back into his old ways.

Needless to say, since he was willing to change and was working hard on it, he was forgiven and brought back into the fold. You see, he was not a bad person, he just had circumstances happen in his life that had him choosing to be argumentative and he allowed what was really effective for him as a prosecutor to effect the rest of his life. Once he saw what was happening and we talked about how he could change it, he eventually returned to the easy going, nice guy he had been before. He learned that he did not have to be "on" all the time and you know he actually was a funny, witty and charming guy.

If you find that you are like the guy in the story it does not mean that you are a bad person either. Maybe no one has ever pointed it out to you. Maybe you feel you have to be this way. Either way, if you do not like what you see about yourself, you too can change it. It will not be easy and will take some time but in the end it will be worth it.

That's all for today.

May you be blessed always and in all ways.

Harry

Thankful for my health!

I have not been posting lately because I have been under the weather and it is at times like these that I am so grateful for my health. That may sound starnge coming from someone who is currently not 100% healthy but you have to understand that I rarely am under the weather.

So, when I am not feeling the best, it is when I reflect on all the times, about 99.9% of which that I am the epitome of health. It also causes me to pause and think of all those who are fighting for their lives or have to deal with chonic illness and/or pain. Those that are dealing with those things and remain positive are truly inspirational.

So today I ask. How do you handle it when you are not feeling well? I for one continue to focus on the positive and do everything in my power to help my body to heal and I know that it helps me to heal and reduces both the severity and length of the illness.

I also go inward and reflect on what I may have done to bring about the sickness. If I cannot pin point anything, then I just focus on what I need to learn from the experience and do my best to take in the lesson.

I know that everytime I have had an illness or injury that there was something to learn from it. Maybe I am just being told that I need to slow down and rest. Maybe, it's just that I was doing things that caused me to catch a virus or I was not doing things to avoid it.

Whatever it is, you can use these events to grow both spiritually and personally. Nothing like a good illness and/or injury to make you catch up on your rest or that pile of books you have been meaning to read.

My wish for everyone is that you lead healthy and happy lives.

Until next time.

May you be blessed always and in all ways!

Harry