The power of positive thinking and the danger of negative thinking.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts. ~Samuel Johnson

Every growing person is dominated predominately by positive thinking. When negative thinking grows in a person then the positive passion and power of that person fades and they begin to diminish. It is important therefore that we promote positive thinking in our own lives and resist the temptation to be negative. Only when there is more positive thinking than negative thinking will our lives be healthy and growing.

What is realistic positive thinking?

Look at the best side of a situation while acknowledging problems
Believing that God can change me and others
Believe in God answering prayer in a positive way
Having hope in what God will do with in the future
Supporting positive comments and encouraging faith in others
Avoiding griping, complaining, and murmuring
Find true encouraging things to say about myself and others
Confess my sins with the confidence that God forgives me my sins in Christ Jesus
Pray for the pastor, leaders, and the other people in the church while praising God
Pray for the political leaders of my nation and the world while praising God for working for good in the midst of history.
As led by the Holy Spirit try new or challenging things hopeful that God will use them
Get better as I reflect about the past, identify mistakes, and gain wisdom from it
Encourage new, creative, and inventive ideas and see them as possible
Try to see new things from new perspectives. Seek to grow as a Christian and person.
Take prayerful and thoughtful risks
Be encouraged by those who are looking for the “up side” of a disaster
Believe that God is working all things together for good
Praise attempts to fix a dysfunctional situation
Be open to changing my point of view to see things more from God’s perspective
Believe I am realistic not optimistic
What is negative thinking?
I look at the worst side of a situation and make that the focus.
I lack the belief that I could change or others could change
I lose hope in the future being better
I take the opposing view in any positive conversation
I never make upbeat or uplifting comments about myself or others
I turn conversations into griping, complaining, or murmuring sessions
I spread rumors and gossip about leaders and suspect them of evil without proof
I complain about the pastor, the leaders, and other people in the church, and even God
I complain about political leaders, promote the idea of secret conspiracies, and offer no hope for society. I don't bother to pray for leaders I know God will not hear.
I try nothing new or challenging because I feel that I will fail.
I get bitter over how people treat me.
I put down new, creative, and inventive ideas as impossible without being willing to brain storm.
I limit my vision of what God could be doing in my life.
I take no risks.
I am cynical towards those who are looking for an “up” side of a tragedy, failure, or disaster.
I ridicule those who say “all things are working together for good.”
I ridicule attempts to fix dysfunctional situations.
I tell people I am realistic not pessimistic.

No one is totally positive or negative. These tendencies will go up and down in each of us as individuals and as a society as a whole. Where the majority of the people and the weight of the emotional energy is positive then growth in a society will normally occur.

People are attracted to positive groups and repelled by negative ones. We should strive therefore to be realistically positive in all we do if we want our lives, our families, our communities, our culture, and the world to become more healthy. It is by promoting such an attitude that we will enjoy the life that God has given to us and attach other people to live such a life as well.

What Affects Human Behavior?

What affects human behavior? This question is important to us because we want to understand our own behavior and that of others. We desire to even understand the behavior of groups of people found in society and culture. Behind the question is that some behavior is seen as being healthy and some is seen as being unhealthy. Some is seen as being moral and some as immoral. We would want to promote sane, stable, and spiritual behavior and limit insane, unstable, and hateful behavior. So what affects human behavior?

There are two root sources of human behavior. One is the physical biology of the human being. The other is the core "faith" or central "beliefs" of that person. These significant beliefs form "Life commandments", values, principles, and proverbs by which the person lives. This is the "wisdom" of the person. These two factors, the one biological and the other philosophical govern the behavior of the person.

Biology would include genetics which do not so much govern behavior as create tendencies in some direction. However, in some cases such as schizophrenia the actual experience of the person is strongly impacted by the genetic disorder. The body being "unhealthy" can impact our thinking ability and perception of reality. Being bi-polar radically changes how a person feels about life and perceives reality. Knowing that something is biological can help us control it but it still has a great impact. For a practical way of getting our heads around this I would recommend watching the movie "A Beautiful Mind" which is about a man who must face the fact that his mind is lying to him due to a chemical imbalance. This is one reason why the use of medication to help restore normal balance to our bodies is part of what must be considered if we become aware of a biological problem existing.

The "core faith" of a person or what one philosopher calls our "religious ground motives" is the pair of glasses we have chosen and been given, through which we see life. The reason these glasses have both been chosen and been given is that as children our "religious ground motives" or "core faith" is given to us by our family, peers, society, media, experiences, and culture. As Dr. Francis Schaeffer said most people catch their view of the world the same way the catch the common cold. They simply are exposed to it and catch it without much thought on their part.

However, the maturing process by which we move from thinking like children to thinking like adults is designed for us to question the "core faith" we have been given and either confirm it for our own reasons, modify it, or replace it with something new. Some people never do this and lack this process of maturity. There faith remains the faith of a child even though they are adults. The fact is we have a moral responsibility to "know ourselves" and evaluate if our "core beliefs" or "religious ground motives" are true or false. It is out of these heart felt beliefs that we will develop our life style and behavior. Therefore, the choice of these key values is of vital importance in understanding and influencing human behavior.

From these core beliefs we then frame our thinking. Dr. Thomas S. Kuhn in his work on the structure of scientific revolutions has demonstrated that breakthroughs in science are not normally caused by new information but by a change in mental "paradigms" by which the information is interpreted. The same is true for our thinking. Our presuppositions about life determine what we think. We begin to narrate a story about our lives, the lives of others, and society based on these core beliefs.

Our thinking which is expressed in our "self talk" and "life story" create our emotions. If this inner voice is telling a story that is optimistic and noble we feel "happy" and if this voice tells a tragic story about life we become pessimistic and sad. If our story makes us "victims" we can feel defensive and angry. If our inner tale pictures us as noble heroes and heroines then we have a tendency to act out our roles. These stories are very complex and have many sub-plots. But the truth is that the world is a stage and we are actors on it. But not only actors but playwrights and directors as well.

All of our actions are governed by our emotions. Mr. Spock in the series "Star Trek" would not act logically except he loved logic. In fact in the development of this character as his beliefs about emotions change and the story he has about life changes, then we see the actions of Mr. Spock changing to include the acceptance of the expression of emotions as a positive good. Emotions are created out of the story we are telling about our lives and about life generally. They can also be created out of our biology. Therefore, these are the two immediate things that affect our behavior. However, ultimately our story is guided by our "core faith" about life. To change the behavior we have to change the script and to change the script one has to change their "core beliefs" that govern that personal script.

So if there is behavior you would want to get rid of as an individual you have to be willing to look at your core beliefs and your biological state. Where is the behavior you want to change coming from? Only by taking a step back and striving to objectively "know ourselves" can we decide to change our beliefs and biology. If we were to hope to change society and culture this could only be done by attempting to impact people at the level of their "core beliefs" or "central values" while encouraging proper use of medication that would produce better behavior.

It is interesting to note that our biology can be impacted by our environment.
A group of scientist have released a report called "Hardwired to Connect:
The Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities" (http://www.americanvalues.org/html/hardwired_-_ex_summary.html)
which suggest that one of the reasons why American youth have to be put on so much medication to control their behavior is due to the lack of healthy social communities in which they are being raised. The study seems to indicate that there is healthy way for society to be structured that helps children biologically to remain balanced and dysfunctional structures of society that actually produces biological problems in governing behavior.

It is also true that in some cases we are using medication when we should be helping people go deeper into their philosophical belief systems which may be the source of their struggles. Dr. Lou Marinoff in his book "Plato, Not Prozac! Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems" makes a good case that in some cases if we could get our thinking straight that this would do us more good than medication.

What affects our behavior? The short answer is biology and beliefs. How could we change our behavior. We need to know ourselves and rightly determine the source of our feelings so that we know if they are coming from our beliefs or our biology and even how these two may be interacting. Only by being willing to change some of our core beliefs or biology would we be able to make life style changes. This occurs only when we stop justifying our current behavior and are willing to recognize that we have a problem. Only the humble can change.

Dealing with difficult people

How do we deal with difficult people? How do we make peace in a world of aggressive people? How do we keep from becoming abusive to abusers?

The first step we must make is to recognize we are not responsible for the other person or their abuse. We do not cause someone to abuse us. When someone acts in a wrong way they are 100% responsible for what they do.

The second reality is that we must carefully think through our response. We must not react but carefully choose what we say and do. Each word and each action should revlect our most sane, stable, and spiritual self.

The third reality is that as much as it is under our control we should strive to be at peace with every person. While setting proper boundaries we should strive to find resolutions to conflict. Our aim should not be "justice" but harmony.

We will always have to deal with difficult and abusive people. There will always be people who hurt us. But we can limit that pain by being peace makers. By having realistic expectations and striving for self control we can maximize our influence for good and limit the evil such people can cause.

The power of purpose

Human beings need a sense of purpose. In World War II the Japanese would break prisoners by first having them dig a ditch in the morning and then fill in the same ditch in the afternoon. Working without purpose drives us crazy.

We need to feel that our efforts will allow us to live. There must be a connection in our minds between our doing and our surviving.

We need to feel that our efforts will lead us to love. We want to know the love of God and other people. To be loved and to love are critical. Our efforts must give us hope that our relationships will deepen.

We need to believe we are learning. Our efforts must be leading us to better knowledge of life, the world, others, God, and our experiences. We do not want to believe we will not find answers.

We need to believe that we will find laughter in our doing. Life without the potential for fun is enough to drive us mad. The joy of life is part of what we seek.

Finally, we want to believe that what we do will leave a good legacy. We must believe that our striving, working, sweating, and struggling will leave a good mark upon the world. We want to believe that God is using our life for good.

Our purpose is to live, love, learn, laugh, and leave a good legacy to the next generation. Only as we have a sense of divine calling and significance in each of these areas are we sane, stable, and spiritual.

As we begin 2010 let us check our lives. Are we on course? Is our direction leading to what we want to accomplish in our lives? If not; then what needs to change? How would we change it? It is a good time to ask such questions.