"Of these three weapons against our age of negativity, gratitude is the most powerful. Sadly, though gratitude is called the “parent of all virtues,” it’s amazing how few people practice it."
"For most of the 21st century, a mob of Grinches has controlled American culture and politics.
"These are the Chicken Littles who have wailed that “climate change” would doom the planet. They are the sorcerers who declare that men can become women and vice-versa, who despite the blood-stained evidence of a hundred years proclaim the virtues of communism, who reinstituted racism through DEI initiatives. They are the iconoclasts who tore down statues and mocked the Constitution, the educators who have graduated legions of young people who can barely read or cipher and know almost nothing of history, the politicians who pontificate about problems without having the spine to tackle them.
"The results? An embarrassing number of Americans now lay claim to some sort of victimhood. A record number suffer from emotional and mental illnesses. Irrationality in public affairs now seems the norm. The country has become so divided that even the sexes have gone to war with each other.
"Perhaps worst of all, optimism, that can-do attitude that was once a hallmark of the American spirit, seems as dead as our knowledge of the past. In his 1902 book “As a Man Thinketh,” James Allen writes of men and women, “As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.”
"The idea is old, but how often do we keep it in mind? If we’re daily surrounded by mostly negative thoughts and fail to keep them at bay, then we’ll become those thoughts, just as Allen says. Imagine the state of America today had our ancestors been so drenched by these downpours of negative thinking.
"So, what are some ways we can intentionally channel our thinking out of this swamp and into the brighter waters of a living stream? How can we reorient ourselves toward realistic optimism?" . . .More...
.jpg)
