How to Become a Positive Thinker
Norman Vincent Peale shares four easy steps you can take to cultivate a positive attitude.
The world in which you live is not determined by outward circumstances as much as it is by the thoughts that occupy your mind. You can think and believe your way to misery or to a life of joy, satisfaction, and abundance. You have the power to choose.
The concept of positive thinking is a philosophy, an expression of faith. It doesn’t ignore life’s problems, but explains a practical approach to deal with, and overcome, them.
Anyone interested in seeking a better, promise- filled way of life, can find it through positive thinking and faith in God. To become a successful positive thinker, here are some ideas to think about:
1. To every disadvantage, there usually is a corresponding advantage. Consider the old truism that behind the darkest clouds the sun is shining. In the toughest situations there is always some value that is inherently good. The positive thinker will look for the good, for the advantage, and will therefore do far better with the difficulty than the negative thinker will. What you deeply think and visualize has a strong tendency to happen. So always think positively, believingly, expectantly, hopefully.
2. It isn’t what is happening but your attitude toward what is happening. Let’s assume a big, hard fact, and here are two men of equal intelligence facing it. One man says. “This is an overwhelming difficulty, more than I can handle.” So he is defeated by the fact. The other man says, “This is a tough situation, but with God’s help, I can handle it.” And he proceeds to do so successfully. It is the attitude toward the fact that is crucial—more so than the fact itself.
3. Develop a positive mental attitude toward the bottom. I have often had to deal with glum and discouraged people who have said, “I’ve hit bottom and there is no hope.” To one such man I replied, “Congratulations. Having hit bottom, you can go no lower; the only direction is up. So start thinking up.” He did, and after a time new ideas came that helped him to move up well above the bottom.
4. Put thoughts of God up against your trouble. A friend of mine, at 84, had her leg amputated. Even so, she does all her housework from a wheelchair. When asked if she ever becomes discouraged, she answered, “Certainly I do.” Then I asked, “What do you do when you get discouraged?” She replied, “What is there to do but get over it? I simply take the attitude that, with the Lord helping me, I can sweep all dark shadows from my mind, as I do the dust in my house.”
Quotations about U.S. Marines:
The safest place in Korea was right behind a platoon of Marines. Lord, how they could fight! [MGen. Frank E. Lowe, USA; Korea, 26 January 1952]
Marines know how to use their bayonets. [Navy Times; November 1994]
The United States Marine Corps, with it fiercely proud tradition of excellence in combat, its hallowed rituals, and its unbending code of honor, is part of the fabric of American myth. [Thomas E. Ricks; Making the Corps, 1997]
The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next five hundred years. [James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy; 23 February 1945 (the flag-raising on Iwo Jima had been immortalized in a photograph by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal)]
I have just returned from visiting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world! [Gen. Douglas MacArthur, USA; Korea, 21 September 1950]
Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don’t have that problem. [Ronald Reagan, U.S. President; 1985]
Marines I see as two breeds, Rottweilers or Dobermans, because Marines come in two varieties, big and mean, or skinny and mean. They’re aggressive on the attack and tenacious on defense. They’ve got really short hair and they always go for the throat. [RAdm. “Jay” R. Stark, USN; 10 November 1995]
They told (us) to open up the Embassy, or “we’ll blow you away.” And then they looked up and saw the Marines on the roof with these really big guns, and they said in Somali, “Igaralli ahow,” which means “Excuse me, I didn’t mean it, my mistake.” [Karen Aquilar, in the U.S. Embassy; Mogadishu, Somalia, 1991]