My cheesy roommate has gotten me hooked on the idea that if we surround ourselves with reminders of the kind of people we want to be, it will keep us motivated and focused on the end result. SO this weekend I was busy cutting pictures out of magazines that embodied the things I was striving to achieve. (Note: an excellent procrastination technique for actually taking steps to becoming the kind of person you want to be).
My boyfriend just laughed at me, especially because I spent ten minutes of our Skype date showing him my "inspiration board" by holding it 2 inches away from my webcam. But it's an interesting concept to think about, whether all that positive thinking and association really works. Whether just thinking results in actually becoming.
There's a book that a lot of people bought into (and made fun of) called "The Secret," focused around the power of positive thinking. It used the idea of a concept board too, asserting that if you just thought about the things you wanted, asked for the things you wanted, went as far as pretending you already had these things, they would just come to you. Think about big checks coming, and big checks would start coming, conveniently arriving right in your mailbox!
This new age kind of thing is easy to criticize and laugh about- after all, if it was that easy, everyone would be doing it and everyone would have just what they wanted, right?
But I think if you strip away all the gimmicky stuff about getting money or the perfect man or the perfect job, if you look at the idea, you can find a lot of support for it in other places. All those sayings that coaches deal out to their players, the proverbs e-mailed by nonprofit organizations to their supporters, the Hallmark cards celebrating hard work and effort, Michael Jordan's quote books- they all say the same thing.
"The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible."
"Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right."
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
Then I found this one (which really just made me laugh, AND think of my roomie):
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems,
but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."
The place I see this idea put in practice more than anywhere else, though, is in religion- another thing my roommate has sucked me into. Last week, I went with her to this thing in Charlotte for young Christians to get together and do whatever it is that young Christians would want to do on a Tuesday night. We had to go to a bar afterward to take the edge off for me. Anyway, the session topic was all about having faith that God is going to provide you with the things you need as long as you keep living your life in the Christian way.
Aside from the overwhelming religious message in the whole thing, it really made me think about this idea of faith. Not necessarily faith in God, but faith in general. So much of the time people define faith in a religious way. But really, what is the difference in faith put in God and faith put in something else? Wherever you are applying it- whether you have an unshakable faith in the goodness of people, in the loyalty of your friends, family, and lovers, in yourself- it really has the same kind of effect. Generally, people who have strong faith in their friends have pretty good friends. People who believe in humankind are going to look at life through that lens and generally will focus on the things that affirm that faith and downplay the things that do not. People who love themselves and think highly of themselves are usually going to be pretty pleased with themselves.
To me, the idea is that positive thinking and faith works because you believe it will. You're making an active choice to see things a certain way, and usually, that works.
So I'm going to keep looking at my inspiration board, willing myself to have a six pack like the one I cut out, and dancing around in booty shorts and a sports bra to get my butt nice and tight. Positive thinking like that works, right?
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