Be Happy

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.” – Abraham Lincoln

The importance of positive thoughts can’t be overstated. Most of us spend so much of our time swimming in negative thoughts about a fight we had with our significant other, our meeting tomorrow that we aren’t confident about, or the plethora of things we have yet to do on our “to do list’s” that we forget to spend time to make ourselves happy.

Thoughts lay the groundwork for everything that happens in our lives: what we decide to do in our lives, how we deal with situations, creation, destruction, relationships, love, hate, desire, etc. All of these things first come from our minds – our thoughts.

Our thoughts are what get us out of bed every day and keep us moving throughout the day. Our thoughts are what allow us to be lazy and procrastinate on things.

Our thoughts move mountains and create skyscrapers.

Our thoughts allow us to create telescopes large enough to see potential life on other planets!

Conversely, our thoughts start wars and create weapons of mass destruction. Our thoughts are what keep us from realizing goals.

Our thoughts can either keep us prisoners or free our minds.

What I’m trying to say is…thoughts are the most important things in existence.

So, thoughts are pretty important when looked at like that, right? Well then, wouldn’t we want to have lives led by the positive thoughts rather than the negative ones?

Of course!

According to a wonderful article at the Huffington Post website, there’s more than just speculation to back up the importance of thoughts.

Barbara Fredrickson, a positive psychology researcher at the University of North Carolina, conducted a study showing that positive thoughts allowed the brain to open up and create more possibilities and thoughts, whereas negative thoughts closed the mind off, keeping thoughts focused on fewer things.

The author of the article pointed out how positive thinking and activities can help people build skills for use in everyday life: “The benefits of positive emotions don’t stop after a few minutes of good feelings subside. In fact, the biggest benefit that positive emotions provide is an enhanced ability to build skills and develop resources for use later in life.”

The article also provides a few ways to increase the positive thinking in life:

1. Meditation- being alone with your thoughts and not distractions can keep your thoughts in check and you in the driver’s seat.

2. Writing – the ability to express thoughts and opinions by putting them down on paper can help you organize how you’re feeling and what you’d like to accomplish.

3. Play- being bogged down by work doesn’t exactly help the psyche, so take some time out of your week to do something fun and recharge your batteries.

The next time you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by negative thoughts, try forcing yourself to thinking positively – you might be surprised by the results.

So be happy!

Be Unconditionally Responsible!