HOW TO HAVE JOY OUT OF LIFE - 5
Practical Suggestion No. 2.
One of the worst of all the joy-killers is the habit of thinking and talking negatively. I read of a businessman who carries a card in his pocket. On the card were written the words: “I shall not speak any negative words today. I shall not think any negative thoughts today.” The business man takes a new card every morning and writes the words afresh. He has been doing this daily for about a year and, as a result, he says, “my conversation is almost cleared of negative s. Before I started this practice, I spoke negatively about almost everything, - and I found that there was no fun in life. Today, life is so much full of joy that sometimes feel that I may burst.”
Life is full of joy to the man who thinks positively and speaks positively. Many of us are in the habit of thinking negative thoughts. We exaggerate misfortunes which may never come to us at all.
There is the amusing story of a man and his wife who set out to visit a friend, whose house was some miles distant from their own. On the way, they remembered that they would have to cross a bridge which was very old and was considered unsafe. The woman began to worry about it.
“What shall we do about that bridge?” she asked her husband. “I shall never dare to go over it, and there is no boat that can take us across the river.”
“Oh,” said the man, “I never thought of the bridge. It is most unsafe to cross it. Suppose it should give way while we are on it! We should be drowned!”
“Or suppose,” said his wife, “you step on the rotten plank and break your leg, who would take care of me and the children?”
“I don’t know” said the man, “what would become of us, if I broke a leg. Perhaps, we should all starve to death.
And so it went on. Both of them kept on worrying, imaging all sort of misfortunes would happen to them, until they reached the bridge, and found that a new bridge had already been built, and they crossed over in safely.
(Written by: J P Vaswani)
Practical Suggestion No. 2.
One of the worst of all the joy-killers is the habit of thinking and talking negatively. I read of a businessman who carries a card in his pocket. On the card were written the words: “I shall not speak any negative words today. I shall not think any negative thoughts today.” The business man takes a new card every morning and writes the words afresh. He has been doing this daily for about a year and, as a result, he says, “my conversation is almost cleared of negative s. Before I started this practice, I spoke negatively about almost everything, - and I found that there was no fun in life. Today, life is so much full of joy that sometimes feel that I may burst.”
Life is full of joy to the man who thinks positively and speaks positively. Many of us are in the habit of thinking negative thoughts. We exaggerate misfortunes which may never come to us at all.
There is the amusing story of a man and his wife who set out to visit a friend, whose house was some miles distant from their own. On the way, they remembered that they would have to cross a bridge which was very old and was considered unsafe. The woman began to worry about it.
“What shall we do about that bridge?” she asked her husband. “I shall never dare to go over it, and there is no boat that can take us across the river.”
“Oh,” said the man, “I never thought of the bridge. It is most unsafe to cross it. Suppose it should give way while we are on it! We should be drowned!”
“Or suppose,” said his wife, “you step on the rotten plank and break your leg, who would take care of me and the children?”
“I don’t know” said the man, “what would become of us, if I broke a leg. Perhaps, we should all starve to death.
And so it went on. Both of them kept on worrying, imaging all sort of misfortunes would happen to them, until they reached the bridge, and found that a new bridge had already been built, and they crossed over in safely.
(Written by: J P Vaswani)
-to be continued
