This Girl just needs to be “More Positive”. What?
No it didn’t. As much as I don’t want to write this article (as he is one lovely guy I am writing about) – I will do my best to protect his identity! He is from Melbourne, so for my Sydney friends, stop trying to guess. My old buddy wasn’t doing too well Financially. We would speak quite a bit and he was the sort of fellow that had fantastic ideas, had a charitable and giving heart – but was always afraid of taking risks or doing hard work.
He got really stuck into “Positive Thinking” and took it to the extreme. After watching peanut / bonehead films like “The Secret” he had all the answers and started visualizing to the extreme. 3 Months later, he actually had less money than he started with and I came in as the “Wet Blanket” to discuss what happened.
He was clinging to his Positive Thinking, like a Terrorist justifying killing innocents and despite what logic I put to him, he would deflect it with some very implausible excuse.
I then did what typical Solicitors would do and applied the “Extreme Test”. That is – give him an extreme set of circumstances to breakdown his irrational thinking (that was hurting him financially big time).
I said to him, “OK Secret Friend – So if you are a woman at night, walking home in a dodgy part of town, if you apply Positive Thinking you won’t get mugged?” He then proudly said YES.
If you know me, I always speak several sentences ahead and he walked into my trap – my next line was “OK, if you are a poor woman who got Assaulted at night, is it your fault because you entertained Negative Thoughts?”
He then started to stutter and realized the folly of his arguments and then tried to get out of the corner by saying “But it doesn’t work this way”. I then asked “How does it work?”
His argument close was “You just don’t get it Ed” and then he attacked this blog you are reading now for being “Negative”.
But that is the reality of Positive Thinking isn’t it? Take no action? Ignore the real world? Just sit there “Humming” under a tree?
Well if you are reading this blog post and disagree, I really want to hear your logic. Don’t just label me as “Negative” as my friend did – love to hear your reasoning on this one!
As for my friend, I hope you don’t read this post – but you know I think you are a cool guy and I won’t tell a soul you were the one that said this!
4 Responses
Hi Ed, I personally believe the use of positive thinking is somewhere in between your friend’s thinking and your viewpoint. We need to think positively … and also act/work on our positive wants and needs. We can’t simply “visualise” and expect what we want to just “appear” for us. But we can put the idea out there and get working on receiving it. For example, I wanted a recliner for my practice … checked on EBay and not happy with what was there, put thought out that I’d get one for a reasonable price within the week. That morning went to a networking meeting and “asked” if anyone had a recliner they wanted to sell, or knew anyone who did and the woman next to me answered …. “how many do you need?” So I had a recliner for a tiny price by the end of the week. Thus just “asking” isn’t enough, we have to take action, whether little or small, and also be willing to give … not just take. The woman who offered me the recliner didn’t want payment, but I gave her a small gift of service in return. As for a woman being attacked … if we walk with confidence, and keep vigilant to danger we can often deter an attacker, or avoid a dangerous situation. And if a dangerous situation befalls us … hopefully fight as best we can. Usually such attackers are cowards. They’ve tested criminals and asked them to identify female victims and the criminals have a high success rate in identifying the vulnerable (animal instinct!). Another reason why they choose women, children and the elderly as victims. So stay positive!
Wow Victoria! Fantastic article.
Amazing, so bullies and criminals have a “6th Sense” to target the weak.
Doesn’t surprise.
It’s our job then to find these people first and stop them? 🙂
Very energetic post, I liked that a lot. Will there be a part 2?
Heya just wanted to give you a quick heads up and let you know a few of the pictures aren’t loading correctly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different internet browsers and both show the same outcome.