"You’ve got to accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative. Latch on to the affirmative.” Johnny Mercer
December 31, 2014
By: Linda Case Gibbons
Suppose we did it differently?
Instead of New Year’s resolutions that focus on what we aren’t, what we didn’t, what we shoulda,’ suppose we focused on all the things we already do right?
We’d find that "positive” really works.
Look at puppies. Fuzzy, rumbly-tumbly, when we try to "break them” to teach them, it doesn’t work.
Chewing happens. With puppies it’s your new sneakers. Accidents happen. With puppies it’s usually on your favorite rug.
"Bad boy!” you say. "No, no, no. Bad, bad boy!”
After a while you’re miserable and he’s miserable and you can’t stand to look into those puppy eyes and say "No” one more time.
It isn’t getting either of you anywhere.
So you change horses. You say, "Good boy! Good job!” And he loves it. And so do you! You say it even when he slips up and guess what? He does better!
The positive reinforcement helps in ways criticism never did. Negative reinforcement destroys in ways that are tragic. We’ve seen it firsthand.
When Americans were told, "You didn’t build that.”
When our leaders badmouthed their country mercilessly.
When American citizens were called "stupid.”
Imagine how police officers felt when they were told by a mayor, a president and an attorney general that they needed job retraining to learn to do their job the right way, that they were across-the-board racists.
And corporations when they were characterized as "not creating jobs.”
The same way that puppy feels when he’s called a Bad Boy! Not good.
Negative thinking works, too. We’ve seen it in our country for the past six years and it’s done a job on us.
The last thing we need is more negativity on the eve of a brand new year, whether it’s called "Resolutions” or another edict from the president.
What we do need is to concentrate on what’s right with us, but may just look wrong. Because maybe it’s not wrong.
Are you finding yourself a little porky at year’s end? Maybe it’s a good thing!
Did you share meals with a loved one, some of his last meals? Well, then! You’re a good person. You were there for him. Now all you have to do is cut back on the cookies, but don’t beat yourself up.
Can’t bounce a coin off your abs? -- What kind of a person wants to do that anyway? But if you do, and you’re vowing to hit the gym more in the New Year, give it a break!
Take your dog for a walk or weed the garden. That’s what people used to do. "Working out at the gym” just gives you bragging rights and it costs too much!
Life isn’t easy and getting it right isn’t either.
Take that puppy. Just growing is a big, big job for him.
His legs telescoping up a few inches a day, his body stretching like he’s Alice in Wonderland. Learning all the time, and after a while, only by sheer perseverance, he finally figures out what "stairs” are and how to climb them! Good job!
Just like that puppy, that’s what Americans do every day. Working hard to make it work.
We’d all do it better with a positive hand at the helm, in a less negative world.
We’d all do better with leaders who told us how much the country depends on its entrepreneurs, its taxpayers, its citizens, instead of how selfish they are.
And we’d all do much better with a mayor, president and attorney general who told its policemen, border guardsmen, and governors what a great job they were doing and how they don’t know how they’d ever do without them.
But if they don’t, we can. By accentuating the positive.
Become a "Possibilitarian.” That’s what Dr. Norman Vincent Peale called it.
"No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities, for they’re always there.”
Don’t fall into the trap of focusing on the negative.
And if you feel you have to make "Resolutions,” resolve to "Positive Think” yourselves and the country back into shape.
Happy 2015, friends.
Hold the line, America.