Striving Above Negativity…


No matter how gloomy the day is, above it all the sun still shines faithful and sure. In similar fashion, no matter how gloomy our minds feel, no matter what circumstances we are facing, no matter how things appear to our senses minds, we must continue to strive until the sun reappears faithful and sure.

The world lives and thrives on negativity. The systems of the world have all been craftily designed to submerge us in negativity. Whether it be the news reports or any number of the fear crazed people of the world, our primary job is to endeavor to live above it. If we acquiesce to what things look like or if we hang on the sincere words of the so-called experts, we will find ourselves miserable and defeated. Life is not good because it always seems so, but rather because we know the goodness and blessings are there, despite what things appear to be. We aren’t defeated until we accept the forecast. Don’t accept the forecast.

What happens in your life, whether it be good or bad, happens because of the things you choose to believe. You decide what it is you will and will not believe. However, your beliefs must be founded upon something true. To base your beliefs and actions on the appearance of things leads only to being blown about by every wind of doctrine! Sadly, this is exactly how most people live. If the world says it is hard to find a job that pays good money, thus believing the people settle for less money. If the news report predicts tough times ahead, expecting so the people anticipate difficulties and find them. If the doctors and scientists say this activity leads to this disease, people curtail the activity and still get the disease. You simply cannot believe everything that you hear! Health and prosperity come from God and the truth has no caveats or exceptions.

The problem with negativity is that it fashions and forms your expectations. Being negative, with the rest of the huddled masses, leads you down a predictable path that always ends in defeat. Just as nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing can come from negatives but more things to be negative about. You can’t keep wrapping your mind in darkness then wonder why you can’t see what’s going on. You aren’t being realistic or responsible or whatever other rationalization you’ve been talked into using! But instead, you are simply being deceived. You have become a cooperator with ignorance, working against your own best interest under the guise of being “realistic” or in today’s terms, “real!” What is real or actual or true is what God says is real and actual and true. To consider otherwise is to slide down the same greased path with the rest of mankind to your own destruction, hurt and loss.

Positivity isn’t fanciful or foolish or whim. Positivity is the basis on which your whole life has been conceived. What is foolish is to look around and draw wrong conclusions based on appearances. I can tell you this with all certainty and confidence, the things that mean the most to you, those aspects of life wherein you seek success, will never look as if you are about to get them until you actually overcome and get them! This is the contest and the mystery of life. The whole world lives and suffers amidst frustration because of their learned negativity! Being positive; being determined to think positively, expecting the best no matter appearances is the very portals of heaven lived upon the earth in the moments of your life right now.

In order to be a positive person you must strive. You have to fight for what is right. You have to contend in order to get the things God wants for your life. If you had no spiritual opponent, the things you ardently seek would come to you easily, effortlessly. All that you pursued would turn into gold with limited effort on your part. However, you do have an opponent and the way he steals from you is by convincing you of things that aren’t true. He sours your disposition and leaves you cynical and bitter. Through the systemization of error, he makes the right ways seem wrong and the wrong ways seem right. He convinces you that your attitude, though negative, is proper and fitting given the circumstances that surround you. He persuades you to expect the worst and even when good happens to view it tentatively as fleeting and bound not to last. Add to that all manner of superstition and rituals that mean nothing and do nothing to preserve your happiness. Yet on you go, knocking on wood and modifying your expectations, hoping good things will last and bad things will stay away.

The only sure way to secure your own happiness and refute negativity is to determine in yourself to be a positive person. People flock towards a positive person like they seek out the sun. Drowning in negatives, people need good words and good deeds to restore their beliefs. They need an alternate viewpoint. In continuing to be positive, not ignorant but positive, you set a pattern for the things you do want in your life which serve to root out the things you don’t want in your life. Just as a room doesn’t become fresh until you freely admit air and sunshine into the room, your mind won’t become fresh and alive until you admit sunny thoughts and blessed expectations into it. Life works out better for the positive person, not because everything always goes well, but becuase despite what is going on now, in the end it will all be well.

Whatever storm you find yourself besieged by, know this, above the clouds of doom and despair the sun is still shining, ever shining for you as you strive against the negativity and find the Love and Goodness that has always existed for you…

Just some good thoughts…

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Why am I so Tired?


6-medical-reasons-why-you-might-be-feeling-tired-all-the-time-136425477714502601-180228094029If you are like the rest of us, there are times in your life when you feel perpetually tired and worn out. Often we attribute these feelings to not getting enough sleep or maybe because we are getting older. But, what if there is another reason for those pervasive feelings of fatigue? What if there is a hidden cause you have never even considered before? Are you weary with it all? Then, keep reading!

All of us have a finite amount of energy that we utilize throughout a day. And though we probably have more energy than we realize, we all experience weariness at times. That weariness manifests itself in a lack of zest for life and steals away our ability to solve our problems, ending in frustration and defeat. Our difficulty lies in not understanding the source of our vexation.

All of us compete day by day in the great competition of life. This competition takes place in our minds; specifically in our thoughts. The trial confronting us all lies in a battle between good and evil. It doesn’t matter if you are a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim or an unbeliever, the reality is that if you are alive, you are in the contest. An adamant disbelief in spiritual powers doesn’t take away those powers, it simply leaves you as prey unable to defend yourself appropriately. The contest rages on. Every day and every moment of the day, you have a choice concerning which thoughts you will entertain and which thoughts you will discard. Failure to discard the wrong thoughts, thoughts originating in evil, however subtle they may be, consume your energy rendering you worn out and unable to resist.

The effect of your thoughts on your life is perhaps the most misunderstood thing in the world. Thoughts are not just chemical reactions taking place in your brain, but are in fact the very basis of the life you live, be it bliss or be it misery. Your thoughts form the foundation of your beliefs which in turn produce the reality you are experiencing. Good thoughts, good life. Bad thoughts, bad life. That’s not to say that good thoughts are ignorance or refusal to acknowledge the difficulties of life, but rather deliberate decisions we make regardless of the difficulties, the trials, the challenges. All men are confronted, pushed and prodded, at times with great severity. But in order to prevail, you have to fight back! Failure to fight back and confront the evil, or worse to ignore it or refuse to acknowledge it, will lead ultimately to your eventual demise. There are few things more critical to your success than your thought life.

Spending the day entertaining thoughts of negativity, sour or should I say soured attitudes; cynicism and the like, serve only to suck away your valuable life source. They are carnivorous cancers eating up all they encounter. They are sandpaper in your machinery eventually grinding your life to a halt. Have you ever noticed how much life slows down while you are engulfed in worry over some negative possibility? Sadly, we all live in a world drowning in fear of the next terrible thing that might enter into our lives. Whether it be a disease or loss of income or some unexpected catastrophe, all of us find ourselves threatened day in and day out. Yet somehow we fail to recognize these slights to our existence and continue on as if it is normal. “That’s just the way it is” they say; “That’s just how life works!” Thus I submit to you it is not the way life works! It is an aberration of life.  It is a deformity. It is the unfortunate outcome of a world ignorant of spiritual realties.

Your requirement in the competition, should you decide to start competing, is to take control of your thoughts with the emphasis being “your thoughts.” You have to make the decision to stop entertaining all the nonsense that surrounds you. You must stop accepting the notion that life is already fixed with you powerless to change the outcome. This will take a great toll on your ego and your insistence that you already know, but do it you must. The consideration of evil, in whatever form it assaults you, will invariably deplete your energy, rendering you worn out and unable to fight back. How could you hope to fight back after already accepting the lie? You are defeated before you begin. You are tied to the corners of the ring with your opponent free to bash your face in. Instead, by controlling your thoughts, or at minimum endeavoring to control your thoughts, you are taking away the means of access to your heart the enemy has long since enjoyed. You are saying that life is not all the disaster you’ve been convinced of and that there is a better way. You are demanding your energy and your power back!

There is no human alive that completely gives up on themselves but that they’ve first endured a long fight that has totally worn them out. Human beings are resilient and need simply an opportunity to get back up and get back into the fight. This is your opportunity. Learn for yourself what are “good” thoughts and then learn how to compete. Your victory will come about more by what you refuse to think about than what you do actually think about. Spiritual contests can only be won by spiritual prowess which means engendering the good in order to beat the bad. Your human ability is no match for your opponent, but once you begin to act in the manner which God advises, you will find not only your energy, but unlimited power at your disposal!

Are you tired, my friend? Why not get tired of being defeated and learn how to compete? You are worth that, aren’t you?

I love you…

Just some “good” thoughts…

 

On the Right Track…


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I was on Legacy Parkway the other day when I noticed the Front Runner train approaching parallel to me in the distance. As he got closer, I heard him whisper, “Do you want to go?” I replied out loud, “Ahh yeah, let’s do this!” I got to about 70 mph when I remembered the speed limit on the parkway was 55. I let him go because I already got him. As he whistled off into the distance, bright red and blue on a pristine carriage of sparkling white, I thought, that train is a powerful beast as long as he stays on his track!

If you’ve taken time to notice, everything in the natural realm has a right environment in which to function. As long as it stays in its rightful lane, it does what it was designed to do and does it effortlessly. When it gets out of it’s lane, it ends up as roadkill. Birds fly and no obstacle is too tall for them to fly over. Fish swim but flounder on the bank. Snakes slither in the underbrush and are damn hard to corner. However, humans are a little different. Their domain is all domains because they’ve been blessed with the ability to think. And because they can think and rely less on any natural programming, they have a responsibility to keep themselves on track; the right track.

How can you determine if you are on track? Well, how do you feel? So simple, yet profoundly true. My dogs sometimes poop on the unfinished basement floor because it feels like the outside. But you’re not a dog and know where you are. All people know where they are. They may not like it and they may not want to stay there, but they always know where they are. Unhappiness, discontent, distress and worry serve to show you that you are off track. When it doesn’t feel right it usually aint right and no amount of liquor is going to change it. When you are about to make a bad move you know it’s a bad move because your central nervous system makes you nervous! Having sex with your wife has no down side. But notice how you feel after sex with that woman you just met last night!

The right track has no downside either. It feels good because it is good. The choices you make while at peace will never lead you astray. But, make a decision based on fear and you’ll soon recognize your error. And even if you’ve gotten used to feeling numb, the sting of the wrong track will always make its presence felt. The trouble is we have gotten so used to ignoring our feelings and succumbing to this person and that collective idea, that we fail to operate our greatest weapon, our thought. What is true for you is true and those subtle urgings that command your greatest attention are your way to go; your only way to go. Not to worry, the system is flawless, replete with checks and balances. If, in your immaturity, you choose badly, you will learn it. If your motive was bad, that won’t escape you either. You know; you always know because of how you feel.

Life is lived best in its subtlety. It’s not found in grand decisions like where you’ll live or what profession you will choose. It’s found in a thousand seemingly insignificant choices that surround you every day. Just as a small departure from the tracks spells disaster for a speeding train, subtle compromises from good add together to ruin a life. It’s not the 85% you get right day by day that troubles you. It’s the 15% you are getting wrong. It’s the bad habits, the distractions, the time thieves, the hours spent in worrisome thoughts, the fears, the compromises, the apathy, the letting go. It’s wrong motives and selfish desires that strong-arm away your happiness. It’s not saying “no” when you know the answer should be no! We feel sublime on a diet not from immediate weight loss but from finally exercising self-control!

The right track is you feeling how God always intended for you to feel. There’s a reason we call delightful things – heaven! It’s the contented, peaceful, joyful you, minus all the bullshit. It’s you making the right choices in a 24 hour period and then having the opportunity to start all over again tomorrow! Looking forward on outstretched tip toes is as deleterious as craning your neck back to rehearse afresh the past. Life is to be lived on the right track today while letting tomorrow bring what it may. How much precious life have we wasted struggling to get to some place that has been struggling to get to us? How many mistakes that occurred in a microsecond of time live on and on, imprisoned in our memories today?

Your hopes, your dreams and every good thing you have ever envisioned is still there for you. To find it you must only get yourself on the right track. There is no requirement to be any smarter than you already are. The only requirement is to keep yourself in that place called “good” and cleave to it as if your life depended upon it. You don’t need laws and commandments and rules to do it. All you need is a willingness to listen to your own heart and even more willingness to make the necessary changes to stay the course. The fool will continue in reckless abandon and defy the bad feelings to his own demise. The wise soul will find sooner or later that all he needs to do is obey.

Don’t spend another moment of your life in endless prayers and questioning. Cease searching for some mysterious intruder wreaking havoc on your life. Instead slow your roll and pay attention to what’s happening all around you. Take note of how you feel and trace it back to some thought, some decision, some thing you just did and garner for yourself its lesson. Don’t beat yourself into religious submission to rules and dogmas that make no sense to you. The right choice always feels right and no so-called expert can dispute it. The converse holds true as well, though the whole nation calls it right!

You’re no Front Runner train my friend, and your choices are almost unlimited. The right track has a million destinations but there is always only one way to get there. Choose good! Choose the right track!

Just some good thoughts…

 

 

The Good Thoughts Pledge…for Yourself


download-1I’m going to tell you something tonight that may come as quite a surprise to you. It’s not really a part of mainstream thought. I would even go as far as to say that you may be besieged by thoughts to the contrary. It seems so irresponsible; so laissez-faire; even reckless. It sounds ostentatious; lacking forethought, presumptuous. It may quite threaten the way the western world thinks. Nevertheless, here it is…there is no profit or value or benefit or lesson or good outcome in thinking negatively or critically about yourself.

On the surface, you probably agree in premise. But, can you agree in practice? Can you do it? Should you do it? Do you feel there is a value in chastising yourself or that critically evaluating your behaviors helps you get better? I think most people do and as a result take themselves through endless loops that never end up at – good. I’m not talking about honestly evaluating what you could have done better. I’m talking about rehearsing mistakes you made or reliving negative scenarios. I’m discussing that all too familiar human tendency to berate yourself for saying that dreaded thing or performing that shameful act. Do the people you berate transform themselves? Does feeling ashamed prevent poor choices in the future?

I’m sure you’re curious, so let me explain myself. When you do something wrong, you know it is wrong. Wrong things have a way of communicating a painful message to you and it happens rather quickly. Stubbing your toe may hurt like hell, but is nothing to be compared with willfully stubbing it over and over again. Well, how about your thought life? Will rehearsing that negative scenario make it go away? Is there a remedy or benefit to be found in the rehearsal? If you dutifully replay the event on the VCR of your mind, will you somehow arrive at a place where it now makes sense? Oh, if you could just go back in time, right?

Maybe it will help you to think in terms of the physical. Let’s imagine that you just put your hand on the hot stove. You weren’t seeking to bring pain upon yourself, but because of distraction or ignorance or some competing idea, you set it down on the burner. And as burners do, it burned you! The lesson is immediate! Ah shiiiiiiiiiiii*! You briefly contemplate what happened and then quickly seek a remedy. You most likely won’t ever do it again. Now again, imagine that three days later you are still going through the painful scenario in your head. People would rightfully conclude that you are nuts. But, isn’t that exactly what you do with the other mistakes you make in your life and most likely you did for similar reasons? (Distraction, ignorance, competing ideas) I’m here to tell you today that there is absolutely no profit in it. In fact, there’s grave danger in it.

Dwelling on past mistakes is almost a surefire guarantee that you are going to make the same mistakes again. And, even if you are smart enough to avoid them, dwelling on them only serves to reinforce the idea that something is definitely wrong with you. Not your behavior, you! What possible chance could you ever have of succeeding or overcoming if down deep something is wrong with you?

I’ll put it in terms of the spiritual. Let’s say that there is a force in the world that seduces or deceives you into doing things that are bad. So that force, that the world is woefully unaware of, tricks you into doing something evil. I would say that in itself is bad enough. But, what if you could derive a greater damage to a person by getting them to rehearse the matter for the rest of their lives? I would say you have done an excellent job of defeating that person for a lifetime! Well folks, that is exactly what is taking place when you innocently or ignorantly hold your mistakes; your faults and failings in your mind. It’s insane. No manner of self-chastisement atones for the wrongs done, but instead only hurts you in the process.

This notion of incessant focus on your shortcomings, or more importantly perceived shortcomings is epidemic! It’s a cancer that eats away at all that is good. When a child makes an error he immediately seeks forgiveness. He doesn’t try to undo the wrong. He doesn’t evaluate what might be wrong with him to cause such a thing to happen. He doesn’t review the matter in his mind for two years. He simply seeks forgiveness from his parents and once he receives it, as he knows he almost always will, he moves on – quickly and emphatically. Well, the same is true for you and me. When you hurt people or damage things or hurt your own heart, you make an effort to immediately seek forgiveness and then move on. Refuse to rehearse it or think about or give it space in your mind. If it’s God’s forgiveness you need, get it as He is faithful and just to forgive you, every time!

So, I’m asking you to make a pledge to yourself, for yourself. Do not give the mistakes you made or your faults and human failings or your shortcomings (perceived or real) another thought. Don’t allow them to take up residency in your mind. Put an end to all negative evaluations of yourself. Just stop it! There is no profit or value or benefit or lesson or good outcome in doing so. Being critical of yourself will never make you a better person. Being critical only serves to weaken you from being everything you really ought to be in this life!

Will you take the pledge? I hope so…

Just some good thoughts…