In Positive Thinking Every Day, Norman Vincent Peale discusses the advantages to approaching life with a positive outlook. This book speaks to me in many ways due to the fact that I tend to look at the downsides far more than I look at the positives. By always looking at the negatives, I realize that I'm only ruining my chance at happiness. Norman Peale states that happiness is a choice or an approach, rather than an effect caused by the luck in life or good memories. Therefore, everyone makes his or her own happiness, or sadness. Sometimes, when I'm sad, I can recognize that it's my choice and my choice only to have that frown on my face. Consequently, it should be easier for me to turn my frown upside down, because I can make happiness my choice at all times. In every bad situation, I can look at the positives, instead of dwelling on the ifs, ands, and buts, or telling myself that I could be better off. Peale states that "our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate."
"Thoughts of a kind have a natural affinity.
While the negative thinker tends to draw back to
himself negative results, the positive thinker
activates the world around him positively."
-Norman Vincent Peale
The happy person is happy because he or she thinks positively and is capable of handling failure and defeat calmly and collectively. Sometimes, when someone hurts my feelings or shows me disrespect, I feel like the whole world is against me and I either lash out or go quiet. Maybe if we all followed Peale's advice, we'd all be able to smile at the people who try to get us down, because we know that we all have the power to be happy in every situation life presents to us.
Happiness is a state of mind.
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