Cheryl Wright

We no longer have to wait for a set time to learn what is hap­pen­ing in our coun­try and the world. All-day news chan­nels, so­cial me­dia sites and cell phones with their text-mes­sag­ing fea­ture, en­sure that we are "in the know" with live and di­rect up­dates. Sad­ly, much of the news we get is drip­ping in neg­a­tiv­i­ty. It not on­ly clouds how we view the world but al­so am­pli­fies our dis­sat­is­fac­tion, fear and anger over neg­a­tive sit­u­a­tions in our per­son­al lives and in our so­ci­ety. If we are los­ing hope for a bet­ter to­mor­row, it might be that we are im­bib­ing the pre­vail­ing neg­a­tiv­i­ty. A pos­i­tive at­ti­tude sup­port­ed by pos­i­tive ac­tions can start a chain re­ac­tion that en­livens our hope and in­spires oth­ers to cope, sur­vive and tri­umph in the face of dif­fi­cul­ty and bad news. How do we de­vel­op a pos­i­tive at­ti­tude?

ONE: Ac­knowl­edge what is pos­i­tive in our lives. In the grand scheme of things, God is do­ing His work, of­ten un­seen by our fi­nite eyes. Com­plain­ing in­ces­sant­ly is not on­ly counter-pro­duc­tive but marks us as un­grate­ful and dis­con­tent­ed. It does not gen­er­ate so­lu­tions but per­pet­u­ates and mag­ni­fies our prob­lems. If we be­gin with grat­i­tude for the small­est dai­ly and oc­ca­sion­al bless­ings, we will find that we have a long list of pos­i­tives to ac­knowl­edge, ap­pre­ci­ate and cel­e­brate.

TWO: Fo­cus on the pos­i­tive changes we can make. Far too of­ten, we dwell on the trou­ble, pain, dis­ap­point­ment, in­con­ve­nience and frus­tra­tions in­her­ent in dif­fi­cult times. We com­plain dai­ly to every­one who will lis­ten and noth­ing changes. We should fo­cus on chang­ing what we can and let the rest take its course.

THREE: Be a pos­i­tive force in the lives of oth­ers. By our ac­tions: Pos­i­tive at­ti­tudes and changes be­gin and take ef­fect when we shift our fo­cus away from our own con­cerns, to those that plague our com­mu­ni­ties and in­ves­ti­gate how we can help. For ex­am­ple, we could use our abil­i­ties and strengths to en­sure that the poor and dis­en­fran­chised are not for­got­ten or ill-treat­ed. By our words: We will not be a pos­i­tive in­flu­ence on the lives of oth­ers, if we con­tribute to the neg­a­tiv­i­ty by en­gag­ing in and lis­ten­ing to gos­sip or any con­ver­sa­tion that is pri­mar­i­ly den­i­grat­ing or ad­verse­ly crit­i­cal of oth­er peo­ple. Some­times, peo­ple do not con­sid­er their words, at­ti­tudes or ac­tions to be neg­a­tive and our si­lence gives them per­mis­sion to con­tin­ue. Just bring­ing it to their at­ten­tion may be enough to shift the tem­per­a­ture of the con­ver­sa­tion. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a few words of ac­knowl­edge­ment and en­cour­age­ment may be just the in­spi­ra­tion that shines a pos­i­tive light in some­one's life. We can cre­ate a pos­i­tive world, one per­son at a time, with words such as, "Thank you," "Good work," "I'm here for you," and "You can call me any­time."

FOUR: Cre­ate a pos­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment It is easy to be pos­i­tive in a pos­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment. It is when things are emo­tion­al­ly drain­ing and the neg­a­tiv­i­ty threat­ens to con­sume us that we face the chal­lenge to make the best of a bad sit­u­a­tion. A pos­i­tive at­ti­tude can be con­ta­gious. We can make a dif­fer­ence - a pos­i­tive im­pact that changes the emo­tion­al cli­mate in our homes and rip­ples through­out our neigh­bour­hoods, where we work and where we play. Peo­ple of­ten say that the hu­man spir­it is a mighty force; it is strong and ca­pa­ble of ris­ing above the ex­treme vi­cis­si­tudes of life. If we adopt a pos­i­tive at­ti­tude to­day, to­mor­row, we may dis­cov­er we in­flu­enced oth­ers to be pos­i­tive in the midst of a neg­a­tive world.