Abraham Lincoln once met a man who he really didn't like. The man kept annoying him and Abe couldn't understand what it was that made him have to act like that all the time. In a famous quote, he said ?I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.? This quote embodies one of the great sentiments about people that we sometimes forget to incorporate into our lives.
There are many people in the world who don't make sense to us and who we wish were different than the way they are. In fact, there are many people that we would simply do better to just avoid rather than try to understand them. Still, Abe Lincoln's quote is a great sentiment for many of us to learn by because it teaches us that we don't always see people for who they truly are and we may be too quick to judge a person who has been through something that may have been harder than we can imagine.
Everybody is born into a certain life and is faced with overcoming the difficulties that are presented to them. If we are faced with some people who are extremely hard to endure, it may be that there is a lesson in there for us to learn about the problems that others face in their lives. It may be that we can stretch our minds and our hearts to incorporate compassion and understanding into our relationships and make things better for ourselves and others. Learning to look past some of the initial problems we see in others and find that silver lining in their cloud is a great talent and an ability that can define a leader. This was the kind of leadership that our 16th president embodied and why he became such a great emancipator for so many people.
Another great quote that expresses the essence of a positive attitude is by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson once said ?The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitos and silly people.? Emerson's words are a real wake up call for many people. They may think to themselves, have they ever felt the need to wake up every morning and see the first glimmer of light as it begins to glow in the night sky? Have they noticed how fast the sky begins to brighten up upon the first evidence of daylight? Have they noticed how long it takes after that before the actual sun can be seen on the horizon? Have they noticed the magnificence of those first sun beams as they peak over the horizon and burn a bright fire against your eye?
These things that can be witnessed each morning by everyone on the planet are more than often ignored by millions of sleeping people. This amazing and monumental event is seen as nothing because it happens everyday and has been pushed into the background of our subconscious mind. The sun indeed provides all life to the world and is an amazing phenomenon too great to even imagine its intensity. Still, somehow this is all lost to us against a long list of other problems and concerns that plague us each day.
Keeping a positive attitude each day is something that can only come through discipline and effort at first. Once we have created a lot of bad habits and negative attitudes, they take a concerted discipline to overcome. Once we overcome them, however, we may begin to see great things in both the people we thought we could never like and the magnificent sun that we never noticed before.
If you have ever felt like life is not treating you right then you should take a moment to consider how great a role your thinking and attitude play in how life treats you; because it is all about how you perceive your life to be that determines how it will be. If you have negative thoughts, your attitude tends to be just as negative and if you have positive thoughts your attitude will be just as positive. You cannot expect to have a good attitude when all of your thoughts tell you that life is hard, full of disappointment and that it's you against the world.
I want you to try this quick experiment so that you can see how your thoughts really do affect your perceptions on life, as well as your attitude. Think of your best friend and the unconditional love and support shared between the two of you...
Did you smile without meaning to? Did you remember a specific time when your friend showed unconditional love and support for you? Did you notice that your attitude brightened while thinking about your best friend? Chances are very good that this is the experience you had by thinking about something positive.
You were asked to do this quick experiment about positive thinking so that you could experience for yourself how your thoughts affect your attitude. While articles like this are informational and useful, I have always found that they are even more helpful when I can relate to them on a personal level like the experiment above, which positive thinking allowed me to do. I understand what people mean when they say that positive thoughts equal a positive attitude.
How do our thoughts and attitudes play a role in how life treats us? Our thoughts and attitude determines the way we perceive our life. Negative thoughts and a negative attitude will cause us to perceive everyday occurrences negatively. While positive thoughts and a positive attitude will cause us to perceive everyday occurrences positively. People with negative perceptions often make mountains out of mole hills so to speak.
Small things become a very big deal and people with negative attitudes always seem to be the ones that have bad things happening to them on a daily basis. They were late to work. They forgot their lunch at home. Traffic was bad when they got off. The cable was out. You get the idea. Unbeknownst to them is the very real fact that due to their negativity they are missing out on the good things, great and small that are trying to come into their lives.
Through our attitude we send messages to the people around us, and it is not hard to pick out the negative thinkers in the crowd because they usually have sour attitudes and we know one causes the other. Most people do not find negativity attractive. You can significantly improve your relationships with positive thoughts and a positive attitude.
If we are in a negative mode and perceiving our lives in that manner, we are actually creating an existence wherein we attract negativity to us while repelling anything positive. When we do this to ourselves we rationalize that life is just out to get us. We seethe inside as life seems to be going good for everyone else but us. Life is energy. It is not an entity with the power to wage a battle against you. Life is comprised of both good and bad things. The degree to which you will recognize and enjoy the good and cope with the bad is determined by how you perceive these things. And your perceptions are shaped by your thoughts and attitude.
In closing I leave you with this. Indulge in a life of positive thoughts which will equal a positive attitude and life will be good to you. Instead of thinking that the grass is greener on the other side, make your grass the greenest grass that you have ever seen. If you positively believe in your own success, then you can make it happen. Remember that your thoughts have power.
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Gary M. Miller has sinced written about articles on various topics from Religion, Web Development and Sleep Disorder. Gary Miller was the World's Leading expert on Negative Thinking until he lost approximately $3 Million Dollars because of a lifetime of negative thinking. To learn more about his Journey to a Positive Thinking Recovery and weekly FREE Positive Thinking te. Gary M. Miller's top article generates over 90500 views. to your Favourites.
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