Jump For Joy When You Use
The Card Of Happiness
Bathing in the Shower of Negative Information
I assume that for many people daily life is filled with negative factors that might include sickness, obesity, sorrow, fatigue, dullness, aging, pain, abuse, anxiety, fear, stress, anguish, poverty, unemployment, indifference, unpleasantness, boredom, solitude, anger, vengefulness, jealous, failure, and so forth, which distract one from peacefulness and lead in a negative direction. Felonious crimes and serious accidents are immediately reported to the public via newspapers, TV, or the Internet; this type of anxiety-provoking information pours upon you just like a shower, and you have no choice but to bathe in it. But looking toward negative aspects only will set your mind to accept the negative as the reality, and eventually make you question, “How can I lead a happy life?” This gradually eats away at your precious life, damaging your mental and physical health, as well as putting you further away from the origin of your mind.
Happiness Will Come When You Have Positive Thinking
A newborn baby is full of energy, and everyone wishes to lead an enriched life like the baby’s. Since almost everyone is born in a healthy condition, we should focus a spotlight on the positive side of the life rather than make our eyes and mind face toward the negative side. A happy and enriched life is not a “dream” for only those who are chosen, but ought to be a “reality” to all of us. When you are in negative state of mind, you tend to look at your own weakness in order to correct your shortcomings in the struggle to be freed from pain and tension; nevertheless, your goal is usually no higher than ground-zero.
However, in a positive state of mind, when your mind is dominated with such emotions as joy, curiosity, satisfaction, pride, and love, you are able to keep expanding the range of your thoughts and actions. For example, you may be able to come up with an excellent way to resolve the situation when you have some trouble with your neighbors, or you may have an impulse to draw as soon as you look at a beautiful flower. Also you might as well be able to be generous and patient when you are confronted with hardships at work through your curiosity and inquiring mind, which may be empowered by adversity. This can even be a great potential for success. This generous mind is what is called “positive thinking” and also is an “inventory of the heart,” preserving your emotion and action.
Positive Psychology = Card of Happiness
Still some may inquire, “How on earth can we make our life turn around when it is deeply saturated with misery, frustration, and anger?” Positive psychology may be called the “card of happiness” that urges you to take an action, give yourself confidence, and be focused on hope and optimism. When you use this card, what a situation means to you may become totally different from what it was before.
For instance, you can say, “Despite the recession, I have a job, a family, and savings to feed myself and my family. I’m also grateful that I am surrounded by good friends who give me great advice.” Or “I am so grateful that I can deliver my unchanging love and gratitude to my mother, who is fighting diseases, while I closely attend her. I can feel the value and significance of life every time she and I share from the heart and care for each other. I believe that, by the grace of Heaven, her soul will dwell within my heart forever even after she is ascended. I’d like to support those who are dedicated to serving my mother and other patients. I thank God for my good health, and I look forward to my life in the future.” These are great examples of using the “card of happiness” to turn a challenging situation into totally the opposite.
Refining Your Positive Side
Now how can you manage to stay on the positive side? Being resigned and cynical, you could go into a negative spiral, which affects emotion, thoughts, and action and eventually would lead to depression and anxiety. However, positive thinking and feeling will put you on an upward spiral where joy, interests, satisfaction, pride, and love would complement each other so as to expand your thinking–action range. Also this extends your mental capacity to include creativity, a flexible mind, curiosity, a spirit of inquiry, environmental adaptability, and generosity, which would result in increasing the “inventory” where positive thinking, emotion, and action are preserved within you.
Thus, the first priority is to focus yourself upon positive thinking so that you can be uplifted by an upward spiral with which your emotion and actions are fostered and refined; then your good deeds, love, and joy will be enhanced. This whole process will immunize you against adversity and equip you with the ability to have a prompt recovery from the various damages you experience. Riding with this “upward spiral” will certainly increase your likelihood to achieve happiness. Growth and enhancement on the positive side will enable you to overcome obstacles in your life and propel you forward to leading the happy life that everyone wants. It is solely your own will that enables you to reach the unlimited potential of happiness, and you can generate happiness just like the way you build up a healthy and tough body. Positive thinking, emotion, and action definitely have unlimited power to turn everyone’s life into the happiest one
Written by Sun Jin Moon, chairman of Seil Travel and daughter of the Reverend Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, founders of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. Sun Jin Moon graduated from Harvard University with a bachelors in Psychology in 2008.
