Positive

I received a request to take up a question.
It was this:

Quote:
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100407034710AAIlWKJ

how do you overcome negativity in your life ? these persistent negative thoughts are ruining my life ,how do?
build a brain full of positive thoughts and keep negativity to minimum

My answer:
Make a humble but very significant beginning by accepting the fact that there is negativity within us. By simply accepting that there is a negative aspect, we are already planting a positive aspect, of accepting the truth. Looking around at people we can see this easily. Initially, when they refuse to accept that they are a bit negative about anything, they actually end up contributing to the already existing small bit of negativity. One cannot also be too overcautious about this! Just due to some false apprehension if somebody tries to buy a ‘safe’ insurance of a false pretense of accepting that there is some negativity (where there is nothing like that), such a person would end up actually planting one!
Life, by itself is a positive aspect. Only our actions or thoughts can be life-negative. When we find that we are full of negativity, all we have to do is go to our roots, our life, and look at the strongest aspect, the most positive aspect, that is ‘life is still happening in us’.
Next obvious, logical, sequential aspect is that we are breathing in and out. Just watch that very intensely, but utterly relaxed. The very quality of watching breath brings certain very significant aspect of ‘positivity’ that can sustain any and every negativity that has crept or can creep in! This suggestion may look too primitive, crude and illogical. But instead of waiting for proof, etc, it makes sense to lean on the experience of several centuries of ancient masters. The proof will occur any way, with sustained efforts. And basically there is no cost or extra efforts involved. We have to breathe anyways. Just that we are keeping its awareness, and in doing so, trying to remain rooted at where life is happening.. here and now!!
Unquote:

Now having answered, I felt persuaded to look at the question in a deeper perspective, its fuzzy aspect. And the following is what I went through, or rather, it went through me.


The fuzzy aspect of ‘Positive’ approach.

There is a saying….. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”… We are neither angels, nor do we wish to remain fools, despite the fact that danger lurks at almost all places…. …..now especially, with that wide-spread-terrorism.

We are not unfamiliar with the knotty problem of what to choose, when there is really some choice available. Our choice depends upon how positive we can really afford to be. This again in turn depends upon how resourceful we are!

I have been fortunate to witness a few rare breed of bank officers, who ‘volunteer’ to take charge of problematic branches, when they are due for transfer. I did manage to squeeze out a confession of their ‘secret’ formula, as to why they chose to volunteer taking over problematic branches. ‘Simple’, they said, ‘Banking is typically individualistic-attitude-driven-profession, despite several policies laid down to have a fair control over ‘discretion’ used by local heads, which are likely to jeopardize the bank’s stability. A branch can turn ‘problematic’ only when the head of the family fails to get that magical blend of human aspect, commercial viability, and economic prudence while dealing with customers, and especially the staff. Now, when somebody has already spoiled a place, the next person is found to be a great sigh of relief to all around, whether the next person performs or not, even cessation of giving problems is in itself greatly welcomed. So, the appreciation is almost guaranteed. Any additional performance is bonus! A typical positive approach. What these gentlemen hid from me is an honest reporting of their own latent abilities. But that was what exactly what inspired me to grill them into confessing thus!

There was an old Hindi movie, in which the villain-hero is confronted with ‘dead-end’ like situation. He is surrounded by policemen who have used a girl as‘bait’ to trap him inside a conveniently located hotel room. When this hero points a gun at this girl, having discovered the treachery, she announces that she had already emptied the cartridge chamber, and that he has no escape with the police waiting downstairs. Now, here is the positive approach. Instead of getting rid of a problem, this hero introduces a new problem for the police. He smiles and tells the girl that only they both know that the chamber is empty. So he tapes her lips, ties her hands to the rear, drags her along, pointing the gun at her head. The police are ‘committed’ to avoid killing of an innocent, and helplessly watch as he walks away right through them.

It so happened once that the slow speed of work at a railway ticket reservation counter causes a simmer of irritated people waiting in a long queue. There is nothing unusual about it. But on that day, the supervisor got a hint about a likely visit by some inspection officials, and requested the booking clerk to speed up as a ‘one-time-measure’ to avoid adverse remarks/consequences. The timing was so perfect that the next innocent/ignorant fellow who joined up the queue did not have to wait any longer than any of the people ahead of him. His net waiting time was ridiculously low! We may call it luck, coincidence, or whatever. But we know, some people carry this luck around them all the while, while others reach the scene only when it turns problematic! The fuzzy aspect of positive approach is about sensing this a little ahead! It looks too much, to guess. Well, please see, share brokers keep a keen watch at market sentiments, company’s performance, activities of a company, like watching bulk-recruitment, bulk purchase of precious raw materials, etc to make a guess of future potential performance.
Not to speak of those wizards who outdid the income-tax law makers, when they tapped ‘expenditure’ as a source of income, avoiding the maze of complexities devised by ‘experts’ who laid traps with ‘income’ definitions! And now we have ‘deemed’ income benefits, the fringe benefits tax, etc, a feeble attempt to catch up with super wiz-kids working incessantly with exchange-rate-hedging-benefits in place of simple ‘income’ / ‘expense’ nets of tax. It seems we Indians were saved from severity of recession not by virtue of our prudence, but sheer ignorance about ‘hedging’ concepts in financial management!
Perhaps, no body did it better than Alfred Nobel who made good money when countries were at war. So much that later, it really caused some remorse even! And it is the very same element of “positive” approach in him which fetched good money, led him to convert the ‘negative’ effect on others into a positive one, when he instituted the now famous Nobel Prize, Nobel Foundation, which rewards, inspires and motivates the best and rarest of positive performances globally! Now very few people remember him by the title he had infamously acquired, that of “Merchant of death” !

Spirituality rewards us with this fuzzy approach, that elusive ‘remote-sensing’ of impending or lurking danger or favourable opportunity, to a keen, alert & aware person.
Psn (8th April, 2010)