Thinking positively is learned behavior, a process. Your faith will often be tested, but, remain focused. Trust the process, to be blessed. We live a time when speed and efficiency are the main coordinates of our lives. We praise action and instant results and search ways to bypass the whole process of thinking and planning. If we could find ways to do it, we would reduce our existence to a simple game of following the right rules towards success.

When that recipe for a perfect life fails, we find ourselves stuck, depressed, overwhelmed by the chains of inaction or mistake. We embrace anything that could distract us from our pain and unhappiness, but forget to make use of our most powerful weapon.

Some sort of thoughts are probably characteristic to all living species, but the ability to control them, to transform them into something coherent and useful, is only a gift only humans enjoy.

Sometimes we forget about this gift and find ourselves carried away downstream by the inertia of life itself. Action is our beloved tool and thoughts become lost somewhere at the bottom of the toolbox. They become blunt, rusted and engraved with a limited number of patterns. We neglect the awesome power of thoughts.

Power is strongly associated with action, but if we dig deeper we will see that at the core of everything great there was a thought, an idea. Anything that we see around us and is man-made was initially something as vague as a dream inside the mind of its “engineer”.

The same way we want positive events to populate our lives, we should feed our mind with positive thoughts, dreams, and ways to achieve our potential. It is the first step and probably the hardest to take. It is the step that leaves behind fears and weakness, making way for the first beam of light to breach trough darkness.

Our capacity to trigger positive thinking is strongly connected with our inner system of beliefs. If you believe in something you won’t need reason or explanation to maintain that belief. The same way, positive thinking does not need a visible purpose, just constancy and the lack of doubt.

The first level of positive thinking is directed on gratitude. Each individual should try and see itself in a deforming mirror that shows only qualities and achievements. Happy memories from the past are additional ways to unleash this hidden power and quiet down the inner judge.

I am convinced that every one of us has a special place in his/her mind (or heart) for the “greatest hits” of its life. However small the achievement is on an absolute scale that also includes the performers, the same achievement can top the list on a relative scale.

The idea of constantly comparing ourselves with the others is a toxic asset of today’s societies. We associate happiness with different forms of aggregation and try to measure it, only to find out that it eludes us. My happiness has a different unit of measure that yours.

Not to wonder that using the same instruments, the same social template, we feel unfit. Positive thinking rejects the quantitative approach on life and drives the individual in a race with itself. The race is carried over time and won by those who manage to become better than they wear.

Complexity defines our modern lives and we can’t imagine a life without technology and networking. The second level of positive thinking distracts our attention from the good residing inside ourselves to the good residing in the outside world. Our eyes are prepared to see beyond the big picture and focus on the little things, the simplest of things.

Watching how elaborated nature is and how it manages to work without human intervention and fine tune itself can bring peace of mind and enforce a more positive approach on life.

Positive thinking is more than a state. In fact, it is a process that could follow us throughout the years, making our life more enjoyable and rewarding. Positive thinking is the foundation for planning and action.

Believing in the outcome of a particular endeavor, hoping that all will go well is the perfect jump start. What is a giant leap of faith without faith? It is nothing more than a fall, not from the heights, but right in the depths of fear.

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By Vanessa Richardson

Guest columnist

Vanessa Richardson is a guest columnist for The Sampson Independent.