The quote above reads, “A positive mind finds opportunity in everything while the negative mind finds fault in everything.” This quote in conjunction with a quote by Novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, “These little daily choices that we’re so used to thinking are irrelevant are the most important things we do all day long,” had me thinking about a conversation I had recently as to how so many people, especially in our society, find fault in everything, with the attitude that it doesn’t matter because it is such an “everyday” choice, a small choice at that, and then wind up in a position of frustration, anger, anxiety or just feeling like they are butting their head against the wall (sorry for the run-on sentence).
Because it is true that like attracts like, then it stands to reason that when people inject negativity into each decision they make, no matter how small, they are going to end up with negative results. Judge a person or a situation harshly and negatively, and they will most likely deliver negative results as a consequence. Pick out all of their flaws, see all of their negative qualities and that which attracted you to them in the first place, is torn down by unrealistic expectations. It has been my experience that we usually receive what we seek out, even if we don’t know that we are seeking it out. The old adage about when you expect negative things from people, they usually deliver, comes to mind here.
One of the toughest habits to break is that of judging other people negatively. We become conditioned by different generations and lifestyles as we are brought up and we learn this behavior from those people, therefore we think it is the way that things are done. Unfortunately for me, I was brought up this way and all of the influential people in my life are/were very judgmental and in predominantly harsh and negative ways. I am learning to turn this around and to train my mind (which jumps so quickly into judgment mode) to judge in positive ways, finding the good in the situation and/or the person in my line of target, if I have to judge at all.
A better course of action would of course be to not judge at all, but I think that may be next to impossible when we first begin to train our minds to change a behavior that has long been instilled. I notice personally, that I am catching myself each time now, especially working at a school where I meet such an amazing and diverse group of people.
Every situation and every person has at least one, if not so many more, endearing and/or positive traits or aspects. If take each opportunity to find those and stay in constant practice finding those, we find that our attitude toward everything in life begins to switch to the good automatically and ultimately, our lives become positive and easy…who knew(?).
Be an opportunist…take the opportunity to find the good in others and let that be the judgment you make or have to make.
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