Be glad for the things I have, Spread a little cheer where ever I can. and Always look for the good. I haven’t done resolutions for almost twenty years. But I do aspire to maintain a positive outlook on life with all the crap it keeps sending my way.I can’t stand to see a frown. It is a challenge to me to turn every frown I see into a smile. I am always reaching for bubbles of happines. I carry a small bottle of bubbles every where I go. They ALWAYS make people smile. A little smile can change a persons day. and "I" get to share it.
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For: Mondays challenge for January 18th 2010
"in one picture illustrate your one word that describes your New Year’s resolution, dream, ASPIRATION or goal"
. . . and use that one word as your title.
See other Challengers here:
Monday Photo Challenges and Thursday Retreads
www.flickr.com/groups/1091826@N21/
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I was not able to get out to take the photograph I wanted to take, so I created this one from the two below. Using standard "Paint" program that comes with Windows for editing and PS8 for the "artist brush" effects
I know there is a lot to read here, but looking it up keeps me out of trouble. đ
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Long before Dr Norman Vincent Peel and âThe Power of Positive Thinkingâ
Or what ever the current âguruâ might be, There was a little girlâŠ.
Who learned the best part of the Bible and MOST important teachings of it.
In The face of adversity I have ALWAYS found at least one good thing. Though there have been times I had to look really hard for it. But then that is the key to aspiring to have a perpetual Positive attitude. One MUST LOOK for the good especially in the midst of most difficult situations. Prepare for the bad but look for and expect the Good. And That is what I aspire and have alway aspired to do.
Mona Loldwoman
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POLLYANNA
a Pollyanna,
"one who finds cause for gladness in the most difficult situations," 1921, in allusion to Pollyanna Whittier, child heroine of U.S. novelist Eleanor Hodgman Porter’s "Pollyanna" (1913) and "Pollyanna Grows Up" (1915), noted for keeping her chin up during disasters.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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POLLYANNA SYNDROME
Psychologists and ministers who use the derogatory term, âPollyanna Syndromeâ never read the book. That little girl didnât deny the bad events in her life. She just didnât wallow in self-pity and make everybody else miserable. And she based her philosophy on Christâs teachings
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Positive Thinking; Pollyanna Syndrome
By Frances Hall
Why do we have such a downer on Pollyanna? After all, she is just a little girl with a big dose of positive mental attitude. Instead of mocking, may we should learn something from her. Iâm not saying we have to turn into Pollyanna, but when you think about it, positive thinking is the only sensible way forward. Our thinking creates our reality, so isnât it just a bit daft to be creating our reality based on negative thinking? When we realise this, we understand we cannot afford the luxury of negative thinking.
As Einstein said, âwe are boxed in by the boundary conditions of our thinkingâ. Mind management is essentially the key to life management, and we all have the power to choose what we think. It may take time and effort to break the habit of negative thinking, but that is just what it is, a habit. So the trick is to cultivate a new habit of looking for the positive. And the first step is to catch yourself when you are thinking negatively. It may shock you just how many of those 60,000 thoughts that run through your mind every day are of the negative variety. Perhaps when you catch yourself thinking negatively, you can turn it into a positive âbutâ. Whatever it is, look hard for something way to turn it around by seeing an advantage. Focus on the fact that your outer world reflects your inner world.
so which way would you rather thinkâŠâŠâŠâŠ Create the habit of positive thinking
A good tool for this is daily affirmations. These are sayings repeated on a daily basis to manifest a more positive reality. It is a way of harnessing the power of words for your benefit because your reality starts with a thought. Help the mind along a more positive path. Just remember the rule with affirmations is that they must be personal, present and positive, for example âtoday I achieve everything I want effortlesslyâ rather than âtoday I will not have any problemsâ. You can start with something simple like âI choose happinessâ or âI create my own realityâ. You can write them, say them, sing them, itâs up to you, but a minimum of six times a day is good.
As the saying goes, whether you tell yourself you can or tell yourself you canât do something you are right. So what have you got to lose by thinking positive?
Frances Hall
After many years working in film and music, Frances changed career direction to find what for her is a more fulfilling way to live. Now an accredited life coach, massage therapist and writer, she is doing what sheâd rather be doing – helping people get the most out of their lives. Her intention is to âLiberate, Inspire, Focus, Empower.
check out: www.lifematters.gb.com
Article Source: EzineArticles.com/?expert=Frances_Hal
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AND if you’d like to read my favorite part of the book….
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Pollyanna By Eleanor H, Porter
From the book Pollyanna; part of Chapter 22
"Oh, he always said he was, of course, but ‘most always he said, too, that he wouldn’t STAY a minister a minute if ’twasn’t for the rejoicing texts."
"The–WHAT?" The Rev. Paul Ford’s eyes left the leaf and gazed wonderingly into Pollyanna’s merry little face.
âWell, , that’s what father used to call ’em," she laughed. "Of course the Bible didn’t name ’em that. But it’s all those that begin ‘Be glad in the Lord,’ or ‘Rejoice greatly,’ or ‘Shout for joy,’ and all that, you know–such a lot of ’em. Once, when father felt specially bad, he counted ’em. There were eight hundred of âem.
âeight hundred.!â
âYes–that told you to rejoice and be glad, you know; that’s why father named ’em the ‘rejoicing texts.â
âOh.!" There was an odd look on the minister’s face. His eyes had fallen to the words on the top paper in his hands–"But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" "And so your father–liked those ‘rejoicing texts,’ " he murmured
âOh yesâ nodded Pollyanna, emphatically. "He said he felt better right away, that first day he thought to count ’em. He said if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it–SOME. And father felt ashamed that he hadn’t done it more. After that, they got to be such a comfort to him, you know, when things went wrong; when the Ladies’ Aiders got to fight–I mean, when they DIDN’T AGREE about something," corrected Pollyanna, hastily. "Why, it was those texts, too, father said, that made HIM think of the game–he began with ME on the crutches–but he said ’twas the rejoicing texts that started him on it.â
âAnd what game might that be?" asked the minister
"About finding something in everything to be glad about, you know. As I said, he began with me on the crutches." And once more Pollyanna told her story–this time to a man who listened with tender eyes and understanding ears.
A little later Pollyanna and the minister descended the hill, hand in hand. Pollyanna’s face was radiant. Pollyanna loved to talk, and she had been talking now for some time: there seemed to be so many, many things about the game, her father, and the old home life that the minister wanted to know.
At the foot of the hill their ways parted, and Pollyanna down one road, and the minister down another, walked on alone.
In the Rev. Paul Ford’s study that evening the minister sat thinking. Near him on the desk lay a few loose sheets of paper–his sermon notes. Under the suspended pencil in his fingers lay other sheets of paper, blank–his sermon to be. But the minister was not thinking either of what he had written, or of what be intended to write. In his imagination he was far away in a little Western town with a missionary minister who was poor, sick, worried, and almost alone in the world–but who was poring over the Bible to find how many times his Lord and Master had told him to "rejoice and be glad.â
After a time, with a long sigh, the Rev. Paul Ford roused himself, came back from the far Western town, and adjusted the sheets of paper under his hand "Matthew twenty-third; 13–14 and 23," he wrote; then, with a gesture of impatience, he dropped his pencil and pulled toward him a magazine left on the desk by his wife a few minutes before. Listlessly his tired eyes turned from paragraph to paragraph until these words arrested them: "A father one day said to his son, Tom, who, he knew, had refused to fill his mother’s woodbox that morning: ‘Tom, I’m sure you’ll be glad to go and bring in some wood for your mother.’ And without a word Tom went. Why? Just because his father showed so plainly that he expected him to do the right thing. Suppose he had said: ‘Tom, I overheard what you said to your mother this morning, and I’m ashamed of you. Go at once and fill that woodbox!’ I’ll warrant that woodbox, would be empty yet, so far as Tom was concerned!"
On and on read the minister–a word here, a line there, a paragraph somewhere else.
"What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened. . . . Instead of always harping on a man’s faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his REAL self that can dare and do and win out! . . . The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town. . . . People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes–his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest! . . . When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good–you will get that. . . . Tell your son Tom you KNOW he’ll be glad to fill that woodbox–then watch him start, alert and interested!"
The minister dropped the paper and lifted his chin. In a moment he was on his feet, tramping the narrow room back and forth, back and forth. Later, some time later, he drew a long breath, and dropped himself in the chair at his desk.
"God helping me, I’ll do it!" he cried softly. "I’ll tell all my Toms I KNOW they’ll be glad to fill that woodbox! I’ll give them work to do, and I’ll make them so full of the very joy of doing it that they won’t have TIME to look at their neighbors’ woodboxes!" And he picked up his sermon notes, tore straight through the sheets, and cast them from him, so that on one side of his chair lay "But woe unto you," and on the other, "scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" while across the smooth white paper before him his pencil fairly flew–after first drawing one black line through Matthew twenty-third; 13–14 and 23 .â
Thus it happened that the Rev. Paul Ford’s sermon the next Sunday was a veritable bugle-call to the best that was in every man and woman and child that heard it; and its text was one of Pollyanna’s shining eight hundred.
âBe glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart."
END OF CHAPTER
If perhaps you’d like to read the entie book, It is available online through:
Classic Book Library : Pollyanna
classicbook.info/books/pollyanna/index.html
Main page
Classic Book Library -The Classics Online
classicbook.info/index.html
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