THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING; WHO SAYS SUCH THINKING IS OUT OF STYLE?

(these thoughts are added to two or three times a week)

A study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, suggested that our
Mind set can even influence how we walk. They conducted a test and the results were astounding. Participants in the test first walked 100 yards - a distance equal to the length
of a football field. Researchers recorded their speed and the time their feet spent off the ground. Then they briefly played a computer game. While playing the game positive words such as “wise” flashed on the screen for half the participants. On the screens of the other half words such as “senile.”

William Pitt used to emphasize his remarks in Parliament by shaking his crutches in the air. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote some of the world’s finest prose while dying of tuberculosis. Charles Darwin devised his theory of evolution in the few minutes each day he could see well enough to write. Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony even though he was stone deaf. And though Alexander Pope was a hunchback, this physical affliction did not stop him from writing brilliant satires. What lessons these masters of survival have to teach!

The obvious, “It’s the rocks in the river that make it sing.”

Not long ago an eighty-eight -year old friend of mine had a jam session for a birthday party. The lead pianist was ninety-two. Ninety-three old skydivers may be an exception to the rule but my morning paper named one not that long ago. The Florida Tennis Association ranks players up to the age of eighty-five and until just recently another friend, at ninety-one was ranked #2. What I am saying is, the way to not decline is to decline to decline.

My wife and I, a few winters ago, went snowmobiling and the fact that I was pushing my seventies didn’t deter me at all. Yes, we are grateful to be in such good health but we are equally grateful that our “positive thinking” remains equally as healthy.
Speeding along at thirty plus miles an hour on the rim of a 7,000 foot mountain path for two hours was a delightful workout. Snowmobiles have a mind of their own and keeping them on track keeps one busy. But, it was exhilarating, exciting and we would do it again. The inclination for some, when such opportunities present themselves is to follow the axiom, “When in doubt do nothing.” Better an approach that says, “Why not?” rather than, “No, thank you.”