The Power of Positive Thinking

     I had a post all ready for yesterday and I ditched it.  It was about the budget repair bill and all the excitement it is causing.  I felt that it was too opinionated and a little too angry and/or negative.  I want this to be a positive place.  A place where I can practice my writing, but still be fair and positive.  That seems to be harder than it sounds, some days anyway.  Most days I do remain very positive. I am a problem solver and I think you have to be positive to be good at it.  Without a positive attitude where would we be?  Negative attitudes infect everyone they touch. They are like a virus.
     Not long ago, I was reading a friend's blog.  He was writing about the fact that he might change the name of his book to make it sound more positive.  It reminded me of a teacher I had in college who taught us how to be positive.  She said that your brain does the last thing it hears.  For instance, if you say "Don't forget your mittens,"  what will be heard is "forget your mittens."  If you say, "remember your mittens," what will be heard is "remember your mittens."  Sounds pretty simple doesn't it?  Ever since that lesson I really notice negativity in behavior and in writing.  When you see a memo, it often says something like, "Don't forget about the board meeting..."  It would be better to write "Remember the board meeting..."  I guess it isn't a lesson that everyone is lucky enough to learn.
     It seems that every time there is a movement it seems to be negative.  There are signs that say "kill this" or  "No"  to that.  There always seems to be a sign with a big red circle with a slash mark through it covering whatever it is that "we" don't want.  I wonder how it would be if during a protest the word "no" was off limits.  If there were only positive attitudes allowed, would it change anything?  Maybe if we all had positive attitudes a protest wouldn't be necessary. With all the emphasis that the child care industry puts on positive reinforcement, why is it that we never have a gathering that says, "Hey, you are doing a great job, keep it up!"           It also seems, that sometimes, the people who are protesting haven't been paying attention for quite a while and all of a sudden realize how out of control a situation seems.  We elect people to do a job and then we let them do it.  We become complacent until one of "our rights" is in jeopardy.  "Rights" is a highly charged word, isn't it?  I hear a lot about "our" rights being violated.  It seems to me that with all the well educated minds we have around here (70,000 in Madison on Thursday) we could come up with something better than a protest.  Maybe all those talented minds could get together and come up with a solution that upheld everyone's rights.  And maybe, just maybe if "we" could all stop yelling and trying to be louder than our opponent, we could come up with another option to offer, like an option that doesn't include negativity.  Anybody ever hear the statement, "United we stand, divided we fall?"  Maybe it is time we start working together, before there is nothing left to work for.