Food for Thought

So by this point, you should all be convinced either that positivity is an awesome thing or that I'm completely nuts for trying to find the silver lining in every situation. But what is really the benefit to thinking positively? So far, the only support I've offered for the idea has been pretty weak. "Think positively and you'll love homework and getting rained on and depriving yourself of things you love for forty days at a stretch!" I claim. You, rightly, may be putting your foot down and asking, "But why?"

Truthfully, after a while I started wondering myself why I was so dedicated to the idea of positivity. Sure, it keeps you from groaning about an upsetting situation and might make you feel like the whole world's made of rainbows and butterflies, but so what? In order to gain a better perspective on the benefits of thinking positively, I decided to read the book The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale (a condensed version is available for free here if anyone is interested in checking it out).

So this week let's explore some of the arguments in favor of taking on a positive mindset in life. Why think positively? According to this book, in a survey of 600 college students, a low confidence level was the top-listed personal problem. Low self-confidence generally results from having a negative view of the world and your place in it; in other words, we think we are worthless and the world is pitted against us, and therefore we don't have much confidence in our abilities. In order to restore confidence in ourselves, we have to change the way we view the world.

You may wonder why it matters how we view the world when circumstances are either going to be for you or against you no matter how you look at them. Dr. Karl Menninger, a famous psychiatrist quoted in The Power of Positive Thinking, made the point that "Attitudes are more important than facts." Basically, even if the world really is against you (which it probably isn't) the important thing is still how you control your attitudes about the situation - not the facts of the situation itself.

Okay, so a doctor backed up my reasoning behind thinking positively. Everyone's clear now on the fact that thinking positively is indeed the best option when presented with an unfavorable situation. But why bother making positive thinking a focal point of your life? For one thing, having a positive outlook can fill you with life and energy. The Power of Positive Thinking contains many personal stories and testimonies of people who, through their positive outlook on life, persevered through speaking engagement after speaking engagement or pitched whole baseball games in 100 degree weather without losing morale. Peale makes the point, "The life of strain is difficult. The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence." Living life with a positive outlook is the simplest and happiest way to live.

Another benefit of positive thinking mentioned in the book is that it can actually improve your physical health. Emerging scientific studies have shown that having a positive attitude is linked to having lower levels of stress hormones and inflammation, leading to a more highly functioning immune system. It's long been said that laughter is the best medicine, but it's rapidly becoming clear that even just looking on the bright side of things can really improve your physical health.

So in the end, the tradeoff is this: find the silver lining even when it's hard in order to live an easy and happy life and enjoy good physical and emotional health. Sometimes you have to resist the human urge to wallow in self-pity and instead find the good in a situation. This is potentially a very rewarding exercise. But is it worth it?

Fasting and Weeping and Mourning and...Happiness?

 (DR. THOMAS, THIS IS THE BLOG I WANT SPECIFIC FEEDBACK ON. THANK YOU!)


Unless you've been living under a rock for the last week (or you don't happen to attend a Franciscan university, like I do), you've probably noticed that it's now the Christian liturgical season of Lent. If the crowd of ash-faced church-goers walking around all day last Wednesday didn't clue you in, maybe you noticed the increased number of crucifix necklaces being worn or the drastic reduction in chocolate consumption by your friends and coworkers as they strive to devote themselves to God.

Lent is all about deprivation and repentance. God tells us in the Bible to "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning" (Joel 2:12). Christians abstain from meat, give up favorite activities or foods, and spend more time pursuing God in prayer and devotion. We hear and reflect on stories of Jesus fasting, praying, and even being tempted by the devil himself.

You may be looking at the title of my blog and the title of this post, scratching your head in bewilderment. Fear not. You don't scratch alone. I too was rather perplexed as to how I could apply The Positivity Project to such a season as Lent. The two concepts seem completely at odds with each other, and yet I feel compelled to reconcile them.

Yes, Lent can seem like a negative thing when you look at the material end of things. Most Christians expect to spend forty days fasting (from food or some other pleasurable activity), giving alms, and doing acts of penance. In other words we give up, for a little over a month, all the things we generally think we need to be happy and functional human beings. How can this possibly be a good thing?

Well, sometimes it takes a rough journey to really appreciate the end reward. Yes, we spend weeks baring our souls, identifying the parts of us that separate us from God and figuring out ways to bring ourselves back. Throughout this spiritual journey we remove ourselves from worldly concerns and focus more on growing closer to God. While this quest may have some unpleasant earthly consequences (having to pass on a steak on your Friday night out or losing a couple minutes of sleep to say a rosary in the morning, for example), it theoretically has boundless spiritual rewards.

This is all well and good for those who believe in the idea of Lent, but even from a non-Christian standpoint, taking 40 days to step back and evaluate your life can be a beneficial exercise. I would confidently guess that there isn't anybody out there living a perfect life and taking the time to focus on all the things they want to focus on. These people may not see the positive aspect of spending forty days away from things you like in order to grow closer to God, but I think everyone can appreciate the idea of spending some time in self-reflection and evaluating what really matters in life. At the end, you'll find it was worth spending some time away from that one little thing that used to be endlessly important to you to discover what truly and fundamentally matters to you as a person.

And that's the thing to remember about Lent: although it may seem interminable while you're craving a Hershey's kiss or dying to know what's been going on in the Facebook world, it does in fact come to an end after just 44 short days. And it's not just any end, either. The season of Lent culminates (for Christians) with the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: Easter. All these difficult things we do during Lent - deprivation, repentance, self-examination - lead up to the most triumphant moment in Christianity. And that's one heck of a silver lining.

Let it Rain

If you attend college, you're likely not a fan of rain. Sure, it looks nice when the drops make patterns in puddles on the street and something soothes me about the sound of the steady drumming on the rooftops. However, it does not look so nice when the water starts creeping up my pant legs and nothing soothes me about the sound of wet, squeaking shoes moving through the hallway.

Fortunately, in our fantastic modern world exist these wonderful things called umbrellas. Dog may be man's best friend, but I truly believe an umbrella is a college student's best friend. A cuddly canine works for curling up in your home, but when you walk out of class at the far end of campus and rain begins to absolutely pour down you reach for an umbrella (and feel exceedingly glad you don't have to smell wet dog for the rest of the day).

An umbrella can become a student's best friend - but still it consists of just metal and polyester, and inevitably it will break. So if you walk out of your far-flung class into a cloudburst and your umbrella chooses that moment to fatally malfunction, how do you deal positively with the sudden and tragic loss of your best friend?

For one thing, you should embrace this opportunity to truly appreciate the rain - most people never have such a genuine chance to appreciate the weather. Those who have never broken an umbrella never know the feeling of rain on their skin; those who have never owned an umbrella, period, quickly grow used to (and possibly resentful of) the rain and lose the ability to appreciate it fully. As someone thrust into the rain this one time, knowing you can go buy a new umbrella soon and likely only have to make this sodden trek once, you inhabit the best position possible for appreciating this rejuvenating gift of Mother Nature.

Additionally, your lack of protection from the rain provides you with a top-rate excuse to have a little fun. You're going to arrive soaked at your destination anyway, so why not revert to your childhood and jump in a few puddles? Or if you pass a striking young gentleman or lovely lady, why not take a shot at that movie-scene (every girl's dream) kiss in the rain? At the very least, enjoy your exemption from societal pressures and expectations - no one expects you to look good after traveling such a long distance through a downpour, and in fact most people feel sympathy and pity for you as a victim of bad circumstances.

Finally, as you rush to get out of the rain you might uncover a Good Samaritan who offers to share his or her umbrella with you. Bad circumstances can bring out the best in people, so use this opportunity to uncover the truly kind people in your community.

Next time you find yourself up campus in a downpour without an umbrella, put on a smile, wave goodbye to your bad hair day worries, and remember: if it wasn’t for the rain, we could never appreciate the sunshine.

Kiki found in her broken umbrella a wonderful new pointer!