Positive Thinking vs Wishful Thinking!

My friends who know me will always tell me that I'm not positive enough, I don't have a positive mind set and what not. They might be true, seriously, I'm not an advocate for positive thinking, and religion for a similar reason, though their aim is noble, a lot of people are misled by people who use the original teachings for their own good. Which lead to a lot of people to practice the teachings wrongly!

I've met a few people who are genuinely positive, who can look at a situation from a positive perspective. They look at a situation and instead of thinking how it had adversely impact them, they look at how it might positively affect them. Then they walk towards the brighter direction, it is a very simple change of thought, but it take practice to make it a habit. Positive thinking in this context is healthy, because it will lead a person to a happier life and usually a happy person is a successful person. 

Here are a few example of Wishful Thinking and how it is different from Positive Thinking:

Wishful Thinking: I'm going to get [insert the luxury that you desire] in future!
Positive Thinking: I like [insert the luxury that you desire], how am I going to get it, and what I can do to get it?
Negative Thinking: Given my current condition, it will never be mine!

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Wishful Thinking: I'm going to get well soon!
Positive Thinking: I'll feel better if I stop thinking about how sick I am, how am I recover faster?
Negative Thinking: I'm feeling so sick!

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Wishful Thinking: She'll be mine!
Positive Thinking: I like her, and if it feels right we will be together!
Negative Thinking: She's too good for me!

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Wishful Thinking: I've lost my wallet, but they will be found!
Positive Thinking: I've lost something, but I've learn a lesson, and I should work harder to earn back what I've lost!
Negative Thinking: I've lost my wallet! Everything is so important inside! I need to do so much to get them back!

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Wishful Thinking: This business is the next big thing!
Positive Thinking: This business is going to work if I'm working it right!
Negative Thinking: Well that's the plan, if it works!

The wishful thinker will form their belief and make decision base on what please their future image, without reference to evidence, rationality or reality. On the other hand, the Oxford English Dictionary defines optimism, or positive thinking, as having "hopefulness and confidence about the future or successful outcome of something; a tendency to take a favorable or hopeful view." Unlike wishful thinking, they are more realistic in nature, and hence their decision will be more reliable, and the possibility of them being successful are usually higher.

To be blunt, the wishful thinking people are living in their own bubble, and if they meet someone who have the same bubble, they merge and grow, and if they meet someone with a needle, they burst, bleed and fall, sometimes fatally. Wish and you shall receive is, at least to me, downright superstitious. Wish, work and you shall receive, is however true, and having an optimistic mind, helps increase your productivity and push you for the extra miles that separate you from your competitors.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

- Winston Churchill

So let's start practicing positive thinking in the right way!

Time is but a Marking

Time is but a marking of what happen and what might happen in life. If one said one needed time, it simply means one haven't mark what will happen definitely.

- lauyee

In simpler words, if you are determined to do something, time would not be much of a problem. That includes if you are dying the next day, harsh but true. If you are dying tomorrow, are you sure you will waste your time reading some blog post about how precious time is? It is instinctive that you will mark your life with actions or decisions of what you deem worthy, spend your time the way you wanted most. However, the bummer is that, for better or worse, we do not know for sure when we will be dying.

It is interesting to note that Google can tell you local time of most cities, but they couldn't get a definition of time in English. According to Wikipedia, time is described as

Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects.

Wikipedia also pointed out that defining time in a non-controversial manner applicable to all fields of study has consistently eluded the greatest scholars. Such a confusing concept for a word that we use, sometimes a little too much, especially when we are looking for excuses not to make certain decision. Say when you ask someone if they want to go to certain place for a holiday, and they tell you they do not have time, or they need more time to think or plan about it. That is just an escape for them not to make the decision, an excuse for them not to mark their future time with definite certainty that they will go to the holiday. If you ask why, the answer is definitely because it is not important enough for them to mark their life with the said holiday, or maybe it was the person asking. To that person, better alternative may surface in the future or there are option that they need weigh, and definitely what you proposed is not attractive enough for them to mark it as what will happen definitely.

Time is a mark, on a linear line, what happened are marked, and it's named history; what might happen or will happen will be marked, and would be history once it was marked. You can never mark in certainty in advance, but you could however promise to definitely mark it as you reach the point in life, and it is such promise that we call future. Although there might be possibility that time has more than one dimensions, until the other dimension cross path with the current one, it is best to assume we can only mark a moment once, and since it is so precious that you do not get to remark it again on the same line, it should be a present that you present to the present, and make it memorable whenever possible.

Time is not money if you don't know how to use it, but money is always time no matter how you use it! Quoting the lauyeelosopher, yours sincerely.