Routes to Self Improvement

Drawing done in Corel Painter by Thom Allen. Total time was 1 hour and 12 minutes. Video is around 7 minutes.

Duration : 0:6:56

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Positive thinking is one of the linchpins of self improvement, although you will always find someone who dismisses the whole concept as nonsense. In practice, I am not one of those dismissive people. I am absolutely sure that thinking postively is an essential element of bettering oneself. Think negatively too often, and your motivation will surely suffer. After all, if you are drowning yourself in negative thoughts, you are hardly likely to feel very motivated, are you?

There may be some people in the world who never have a negative thought. I think that those who are blessed with such an existence have indeed blessed themselves through mastering their spirituality. They are most likely to lead a spiritual existence in a part of Asia, rather than in the West, and have mastered some form of deep meditation. That is not certain, of course, but is most likely. There may be nobody in the world who never succumbs to negative thinking. That would be sad, so I prefer to think that some such people exist.

For the rest of us, even though we may generally have a positive outlook, a drift into negative thoughts is likely to happen every now and then. On balance, positive thinking may be our norm, but there are times when we lapse into a moment, or longer, of self pity and negative thinking. So, how should we deal with that.

My own way to deal with such lapses is to use self reprimand. I find that it is now automatic, drawing on the fundamental knowledge that I have every reason to celebrate the truly important aspects of my life. I have  a wonderful wife who is about the most positive, and the nicest, person I have ever met. If I wake up next to her with the mere hint of a negative thought, I just mutter to myself inwardly: "Don't be so **** silly." The **** can be any of several mild expletives we use in England. If, during the day I start to get negative for whatever reason, to feel a bit down, I do exactly the same thing. I will even say it out loud if I am alone.

I always know that soon I will have the company of my bright and cheerful wife, or our delightful and entertaining 4 year old daughter will breeze into my "office" (which is also her bedroom). How dare I have negative thoughts!