Positive Thinking

Psychologists have pointed out that the human brain thinks as many as 50,000 thoughts a day.  Up to 5000 thoughts an hour.  Most of these thoughts are negative.  Thoughts like "I can't do this.  That'll never work.  I can't lose weight.  It's too hard.  My life is a mess.  My kids hate me.  No one loves me. I'm just not good at that."  What we really need to do is to catch ourselves in this thought process and convert the negative thoughts to positive ones.  Once our thoughts become more positive our lives will start to work better. 

Recently I helped with a roadside cleanup.  As I worked I spent a lot of time thinking about why people felt compelled to toss trash out of passing cars.  The more I worked the angrier I became.  I also flashed back six years or so to another roadside cleanup.  We had left bags of trash at the edge of the road for later collection.  Someone had deliberately driven over about four of those bags causing lots of damage and new messes to clean up. I shared this memory with some of the others on the litter crew. 

The other day on my morning walk up the hill behind our house I began to wonder why I was concentrating on all the negative stuff while doing something positive for the neighborhood and the environment.  The young people involved in the cleanup had been having a great time, laughing and chatting with their friends.  They weren't complaining about how sloppy their neighbors were.  They basically were in the here and now. Picking up roadside litter was just what they were doing at that point in time.  As I walked I remembered the times in the past when I had collected the litter from along the trail I was walking on and I was pleased to notice that there was no trash.  I heard myself say, "Why don't you concentrate on the good things that are going on around you and Wish Only Well?"  It was a beautiful spring morning.  The birds were singing and the sun was shining.  Someone else had taken it upon them selves to cleanup this hillside or possibly others who use this trail had awakened to the fact that they should take their trash home with them.

Later that same day I was praised by my new boss and given a raise after only being on the job for two weeks.  During the discussion he told me that he had discussed my performance with his partner and they had debated about how much raise I should receive.  The partner wanted to give a very small raise now with the promise of another raise if my good performance continued.  My boss had decided to give a bigger raise than the partner wanted to give.  After leaving work I thought about the alternative small raise and decided that I would have been insulted if I had only received the smaller raise.  I managed to dwell so much on the imagined insult that I completely forgot about the praise that I had just received.  "Wish Only Well."  Rejoice in the praise and reward received.  Forget the imagined insult.  Where was the insult to begin with? It was only in my head, another of those 5000 thoughts per hour.

The "Wish Only Well" concept is a great tool to use when you catch your self thinking negatively.  When you realize what your mind is telling you, stop and visualize the person or situation.  Say to your self, "I Wish Only Well."  Physically or mentally display the three finger WOW sign.  Then change the negative thought form to positive.  "I can do this.  That will work.  I can lose weight.  It's not as hard as it looks.  My life is fine.  My kids love me.  I am loved.  I can be good at that."  Try these techniques for a month or more and I assure you that you will notice a change in your life for the better.

Much love and WOW energy!


John Kaiser
July 2000

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