We are all the products of our past and present experiences. Everything that we have witnessed in our lives to date has helped to shape us as an individual which is why we are all different.
However apart from knowing that we will die one day, our future remains a mystery. All we can be certain about is that it will contain highs and lows, successes and failures and good times and bad times.
Attitudes to our Future
Our ability to enjoy our future whatever it may throw up, however, is predominantly down to our own attitude to life and our decision to either see life positively and as full of possibilities or to be pessimistic and negative and to feel that the world and everything in it is always against us.
People often say “you only get out of life what you put in” and “you get back what you give out” and there is certainly hard evidence to suggest that this is fact.
Take a look around you. Look at the people you associate with. Are they happy, laughing and full of optimism or do they look miserable, suspicious of others and wary? The chances are that whichever category they fall into, you’re likely to be in the same one.
It’s very true that if you are a positive type of person, you’re likely to see problems as challenges to be overcome and not hurdles. You’re likely to be a go-getter and not a victim. There is no real reason why you should be in one category and not the other. It’s not a matter of fate and saying to yourself things like, “Nothing good ever happens to me anyway”, because if you think like that, nothing good will ever happen to you.
It’s all about choice and making your own decision as to whether you’re going to live life positively or negatively. Living positively is not about smiling all the time even when you’re unhappy or saying ‘have a nice day’ to everybody. It’s simply about choosing to meet life head on, enjoying all the good things it has to offer and being ready to meet the challenges of any tough times ahead.
Benefits of Being Positive
There are many benefits to having a positive outlook on life. Being positive leads to better productivity in the work you do and increases your career prospects. If you’re negative, you’ll get frustrated, get distracted, give up more easily and drag your feet. Being positive leads to better relationships. After all, who wants to be around a killjoy? Not only does their negativity make for bad company, their negative energy can often sap your own positive vibe so you should try to surround yourself with positive people if you want to be happy and confident about your future. Good personal relationships build trust and communication which is far better than feeling negative where you’re always suspicious of others’ motives and feel that people and the world are out to get you.
Our mental attitude to life also affects our physical well-being. Your body can often react to the state of your mind and negative thoughts such as the way you respond to stress will have implications on your physical health too.
We all want to be happy yet it somehow often eludes us or we’re only happy intermittently. Why is this so? You might be cynical and say if you won the lottery jackpot you’d be permanently ecstatic but if that was the case, why are there so many instances of seeing very wealthy, yet equally unhappy people.
Program Yourself
The fact is that happiness truly is a state of mind and one which we have to program ourselves into. Many of us simply bumble on through life with the same thought patterns and emotions, many of which have long served their purpose. It’s up to us to change our way of thinking about how we are going to perceive the world and our place within it. If you adopt a mentality of feeling happy, you’ll start noticing how even the tiniest things you’ve overlooked previously, will start bringing joy into your life – simple things like a beautiful sunset, early morning birdsong or the smell of cut grass at the beginning of Spring. These all sound quite trivial but when you can see the joy and pleasure in simple things, this all combines to give you a positive outlook on life and a sense of peace and serenity in your world.
Define Yourself
Remember, you are what you think. YOU define how others react to you not them. YOU are in control of what comes into your life and what doesn’t. YOU can determine what sort of person you want to be and how you want to be thought of by others and think on, the more positive you are, the more you will attract other like-minded souls towards you.
When it really is a simple matter of choice and programming yourself, it clearly makes sense to choose to feel positive about your future.
