Imagine two characters, Sally and Herbert.
Sally is the embodiment of what many people consider positive thinking. She ignores anything that can damage her sense of happiness, and if you go to her Instagram, you’ll see all these cheery photos in her feed.
When a challenge comes, however, Sally will try to paint positivity over it. She won’t acknowledge that something is wrong because it would disturb this perfect picture.
Herbert, on the other hand, is honest. But this honesty often becomes too heavy. He tends to get caught up in dwelling, instead of seeing the possibilities in front of him.
Now imagine Sally and Herbert trying to bake a cake in the Easy-Bake oven. In case you don’t know, it’s a little plastic kitchen that’s basically a children’s toy. Since it’s a fake oven, it’s obviously impossible to bake an actual cake.
But Sally doesn’t want to accept this…
Not wanting to let this challenge bring her down, Sally puts the cake in the oven anyway. She even finds a way to get some heat in it. While she does bake the cake, she ends up creating something toxic and destroys the oven.
Herbert, on the other hand, remains honest. He knows that there’s no way to bake a cake in a plastic toy, but he dwells on this matter, resulting in no action being taken. Herbert doesn’t even try to work around it.
This story exemplifies purely “positive” and “negative” thinking. As you can see, neither gets them to bake that cake. At least not with optimal success.
But what would get the job done?
Well, it’s the one thing that neither Sally nor Herbert would do: Stay in the present and invite creation to run through them. Instead of forcing creation like Sally, you need to work with the future that already exists. And you can only do that if both your body and mind are present.