Does having a positive outlook during tough times really change anything? Granted that a positive attitude alone doesn’t change anything (i.e., it is just one ingredient in the equation), yet I do believe that not having a positive outlook will certainly make the struggle to dig yourself out of trouble much harder than necessary, too.
Clearly, choosing to be stressed, resentful and angry isn’t going to help you. In good times or bad, being negative will almost always make things more difficult than need be, both in the short- and long-run, i.e., by likely affecting our health (e.g., diet, sleep-patterns, blood-pressure levels, etc.), the quality of the decisions we make , the options we perceive being available to us, as well as the quality of our relationships with the people around us.
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Blog Action Day 2008 has finally arrived! What a great campaign this has been. There was an appropriate amount of reminders to raise awareness, to keep the issue of Poverty top of mind, and to focus on the “Action” part of the event.
Here are three things that stood out for me in the months leading up to today’s “Blog Action Day”:
(1) From the folks behind “Blog Action Day”, there was a steady, yet appropriate, amount of buzz, a.k.a., reminders, in various online mediums, focusing not just on the upcoming event date but also on providing easy-to-consume resources as well as telling compelling stories of what people were actually doing for the event. This really kept the issue top-of-mind over a longer period of time (several months if I recall correctly) yet without being overly intrusive or annoying. All causes should be about more than just a one-day drive-by type of activity.
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Is Conventional Wisdom good or bad? I would say: “it depends on the circumstances.” I tend not to describe things as being only “black or white” anyway. I often see things in shades of gray. There seems to always be extremes and exceptions, or a new combination of elements finally coming together in just the “right” or “wrong” way, that theories just can’t blindly be applied in the same way every time, e.g., what’s good for one person, isn’t always good for all people.
On the other hand, there are those “hard and fast” rules and laws that can seem to be more absolute. For example, if we all follow the “rules of the road” when driving, order is maintained. The system works quite well. But there, too, is were we begin to see those gray areas of “lawful” versus “ethical”, e.g., is it really okay to speed just a little, especially if everyone else does it, too?
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