Hope for the Best
Hope for the best. The second part of that phase is “plan for the worst.” My wife would tell me that “plan the worst” is negative thinking, but I struggle with not considering the second part of the phrase in my daily life. She told me that Monks have the ability to keep negative thoughts from entering their brains and they become enlighten human beings through positive thinking.
But what if you get a flat tire and are going to be late for a meeting. Or worse, late to pick up your child at school. I think you have to learn to to remain positive while at the same time creatively deal with life’s challenges—challenges that most people consider negative.
Our brains do have the ability to block out negative thoughts. I call that optimism. We also have the ability to over come challenges—I call that enthusiasm. If you lack enthusiasm and rely soley on optimistic, then you will lack the power to drive through life’s challenges. This might qualify you as a dreamer but not a doer. Dreamers create a legacy of missed opportunities.
Children face challenges on a daily basis. It is called growing up. How do they navigate the daily basket of new experiences so naturally and why do adults lose that childlike, creative ability to adapt and to learn? For one thing, children don’t generally worry. Adults teach them to worry, but more importantly children are enthusiastic. They want to explore and try new things.
The question is why do we lose our childlike approach to life, which is so rich with opportunities, fun and triumphs. I go back to the monks. We need to block negative thoughts and remain positive. This is not to say we should ignore problems.
If a child breaks a toy, they might glue it back together or just playing with it broken. Our imagination allows broken toys to still function. Children approach playing enthusiastically and create fun.
Many adults just stop working when something breaks in their life instead of enthusiastically playing through the problem. We explain the lack of success as having had a bad day. The flip side of this mind set is there are no bad days if you are in child mode.
