False. I’ll start by pointing the finger at myself first. Most of my happiest days have not been my easiest days. When I was younger I never really gave it much thought, but as I’ve grown older I’ve become more aware of the patterns I’ve seen in my life. Patterns like: what often seems to precede certain thoughts or certain actions or certain expectations in me; what triggers certain emotions in me. The conclusion I’ve come to is that life isn’t perfect, it’s not predictable, and it doesn’t always go my way, but the way I deal with life determines what I will get out of life.
I have had some bad days where things were not going well for me at all! Then I would straighten out my attitude and outlook and the next day I would have a GR-8 day ….. But the problems were still there! So, what changed? On the outside nothing changed, but on the inside I changed my perspective.
I know that sometimes life can bombard us with lemons, but we need to realise that having a positive perspective will never make the problem worse. It might not make much of a difference to the circumstances at first, but at least it’s not making it worse. I have found that having a good perspective helps me to think more clearly on how to effectively deal with the problem in front of me. It also helps me to not make emotional decisions, but rather to make calculated decisions. Calculated decisions are more difficult to make than emotional decisions because we often don’t feel like doing it. But in the long run the calculated decision will produce better results. We have to remove fear, disappointment, anger, bitterness, and comfort out of the way and be decisive in our actions moving forward.
Having said that, I don’t want you thinking that emotions are our enemies. They were given to us by God so we can evaluate and accurately judge our disposition at any given time. Emotions are symptoms of our disposition. We should always be checking and judging them. Positive emotions should be fed so they can grow. Negative emotions should be starved so they can die.
A negative emotion will never produce anything good in your life. Think of it as a monster. If you feed the monster, it grows! You don’t want that monster growing. You’d much rather starve it, right?
I’ve known people who had so many problems in their life, but still kept a positive outlook. And I’ve known people with hardly any problems who have found fault with so much in their life. They couldn’t find anything to be thankful for, yet it was staring them in the face. I know what that’s like because I’ve been there myself – you know, when you feel unthankful and can’t count your blessings because you just can’t seem to see them! I had to straighten myself out quickly before that monster grew!
So, if life throws you lemons, make lemonade 🙂
