Always look for the good within the bad

Your mind is the most elastic thing you possess. As long as our minds are wired negatively all we will see are the storms and once we focus on it, the storms will overwhelm us. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • People generally hold on to the bad. It somehow is easier to believe the bad than it is to believe the good. It is easier to focus on what did not work than it is to see what worked. It is easier to focus on the clouds and never see the silver linings.
  • Once you focus only on what is not working or what appears not to work in your life it will get magnified and will diminish the value of what is going right and soon like my friend you will conclude that you are going through the worst phase of your life.

I watched a movie some time ago with a very powerful lesson for me on how to view life. A man had an affair and it got messy. His children turned against him and wondered why their mother still stayed with him. She explained herself with the following statement, ‘I am staying because of the many things he did right and I’m not leaving him for the one thing that he did wrong’.

People generally hold on to the bad. It somehow is easier to believe the bad than it is to believe the good. It is easier to focus on what did not work than it is to see what worked. It is easier to focus on the clouds and never see the silver linings.

I met with someone recently who told me that he was going through his worst period in life. I later found out that he was just going through a short term cash flow situation.

Just before this period he had bought a car, had climbed up the social ladder and was rubbing shoulders with power but still all he could see was what seemed not to be working. As long as our minds are wired negatively all we will see are the storms and once we focus on it, the storms will overwhelm us.

Once you focus only on what is not working or what appears not to work in your life it will get magnified and will diminish the value of what is going right and soon like my friend you will conclude that you are going through the worst phase of your life.

Thoughts become words and words become realities as I have been writing for the last couple of weeks. This is why it is very important for you to always look for the good within the bad.

YOUR CHOICE

There is the story of a man that I read about. He decided that he was never going to say anything bad about anyone. He wanted to keep his heart pure. It just so happened that in the city where he lived there was a very notorious murderer.

When finally this murderer was apprehended and killed by the police, people asked this man what he had to say about the murderer since no one could ever have anything good to say about such a person.

He paused for a while and said, “Oh! he has a perfect set of teeth”. If you want to seek out the bad, you will find it. If you want to seek out the good, you will find it. The choice is yours.

Similarly leadership that only sees faults and never celebrates good won’t get the best. Imagine how motivated you will be if the only thing that you’re told is how bad you are. As leaders and parents we should be generous with praise when it is due.

This way when we criticise then people will know that it is not personal. Unfortunately, many people are never told that they have done something good or that they look good. The only time they hear comments from the people they look up to are the times when they have not done something good. This can be very demotivating.

However, as demotivating as it might be, it is important to note that no matter what people say or think about you, it derives its power from what you think and say about yourself. When I was a kid, a colleague in school in England called me a Pakistani Bee with a big head. I went home to my mother crying.

Then she asked:  “Are you a Pakistani?” I did not know who a Pakistani was) I said no. She asked if I was a bee. I said no. She then went on to reconfigure my face with some slaps asking why I was then behaving in a manner likely to suggest that my accuser was right. She then told me that my big head was full of brains and somehow that stayed with me that I had brains!

You need to develop such positive energy around yourself that the negativity of the naysayers has no effect on you. 

My validation comes not from man. It comes from the One who gave me life and it comes from my image of myself. If you are called a fool and you take it to heart, isn’t that a way of saying that the accuser might just be right?