This is my prayer for myself and all my friends and family. It sounds innocuous and impotent but positivity is time-proven in producing quality of life.
It’s winter here at home. Every now and then there is a social event where you meet up with old friends, classmates and acquaintances that you haven’t seen in donkey’s ears. In the span of thirty plus years that have passed, we now look at each other and see what time has etched on each of our countenances. The sprightliness of one former classmate particularly struck me. His face was a heartfelt smile and he exuded good health and warm fellow-feeling. Over our little chat, he confided that the secret of his health and youthfulness was his positive attitude to life. It is what we choose to make it. Circumstances will always come at you but how you meet it determines how you come out of it, was the gist of his life’s story.
“I stopped eating meat many years ago, and have not missed it. I realised it was just a habit to eat meat. Nor do I feel sorry for myself when others are gorging on meat at festivals, weddings and the like. My doctor said I needed to avoid it, and I have, and I enjoy very good health.” His good health has ensured that he could use his particular gifts to help build up the community. He invests in the lives of alcoholic young men. Pointing out the stone walls and floors of our host’s house, he proudly stated, “Can you believe all this is the work of alcoholics? Men half blinded by booze built this.” Their work was skilled in a coarse way, yet it did not lack geometrical correctness. Rough stones formed a beautiful walkway across the garden and the stone wall resembled a work of art, no less. My friend’s words surprised me. “It’s all about working with the materials rejected by conventional society,” he smiled. “All the stones here were rejects, likewise the men I worked with were social outcasts. But this is what they produced, and it’s a beautiful lesson in how we can put to use what society has rejected and condemned as useless.” In all this, he admitted that it was his positive attitude that helped him generate these little miracles of nature and human nature.
“Negativity destroys you, always be positive,” was his life theme. He is a walking example of that life philosophy. And the truth we need to learn is that the negative kills anything it comes in contact with. We have been a very negative society in 2016. It was commonplace to corporately pronounce negativity over public property. We have used our mouths to unanimously curse our roads, our leaders, our towns and drain systems, et al, and the end result was that these elements were not able to function properly. Negative speaking is so toxic. It has only one goal – to poison. When two or three are gathered together and speak ill - can you imagine the damage that will ensue?
At this point, I want to mention a very wise teacher called Graham Cooke. He says there is an inherent negativity in people. What to do with a negative thought? The majority would say ‘Work on it.’ But Graham Cooke declares, “Have another thought!” It really is as simple as that. Change that negative thought. Don’t work on it. Have another thought. A positive thought. Find something good to say about somebody instead of underlining his glaring faults repeatedly. Compliment people sincerely on their strengths. If you can’t say anything positive, just shut up then. Don’t say nothing at all. It’s not quite Westlife, but not allowing a negative word to escape will prevent the harm it would have caused.
Let’s stop condemning, judging, cursing. The energy released by positive speaking is tremendous. On New Year’s morning, at the wee hour of 5 am, I went for a walk. The only others abroad were non-Nagas. But when I saw a woman walking toward me, I couldn’t help but blurt out loudly, “Happy New Year!” She smiled broadly, returned the greeting and blessed me. It was such a beautiful moment of connection and her positive blessing brought a smile to me every time I recounted it to members of my household.
Positive speaking is blessing – blessing people, situations, blessing the land, and blessing the skies above us. It is speaking life into our environment. The opposite of that is speaking death into our surroundings by picking on the negatives constantly. Behold I set before you life and death – choose life so that you may live: my paraphrased version of the biblical enjoinment on how to live to the fullest.
