Saturday, March 01, 2008

Why Be Positive?

I decided to write a post in response to a recent comment to my previous post. The comment says that being positive is "too narrow and restricting." I believe that if more people were positive in this world, a lot more things would get done. Not only would more things get done, but, a lot of wars wouldn't happen. To use the analogy that the commenter used, if certain people had been positive and not been looking for revenge, the Mountain Meadows Massacre wouldn't have happened. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to be negative about what is going on in the world. However, if you have a positive outlook on life, things go a lot better. I once had a very smart person tell me that if you smile it makes life go better. I have found that to be the case.

Let me give you an example from the life of my son. He went to Camp Steiner for his first week-long scout camp. This was one of the weeks last summer when there were a lot of thunderstorms. My wife and I were worried about him getting soaked and not enjoying his first week-long scout camp. When he came home on Saturday, we asked him if he had fun. He responded that he had had a great time. We then asked him if it had rained much. His response to this has been very enlightening to me. He said, "No, it didn't rain much at all, only about half the week." That's a positive outlook on life. I can tell you that his life goes much better than some of the bloggers out there. It does take more effort to be positive, but, it does make life go much better. It doesn't take much effort at all to be negative and as my previous post says, it's more childish also.

1 comment:

Scott Hinrichs said...

Great points. Having been to many weeks of Scout camps during my lifetime, I can tell you that much of the perception of how the weather was depends on which half of the week was rainy. A few summers ago I accompanied our troop to camp. It was pretty nasty for most of the week. Then the last two days it dried out and got warmer. By the time we came home, the cold and wet were distant memories of a challenge valiantly survived. Everyone reported having a great time.

When I think of optimistically moving forward, I think of Gordon B. Hinckley. That guy just couldn't be discouraged, and look at all of the great stuff he accomplished in life.