worldview and perspective on Positivity

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

Hope is the power of being cheerful in the presence of circumstances we know to be desperate.

"Nothing paralyzes our lives like the attitude that things can never change. We need to remind ourselves that God can change things. Outlook determines outcome. If we see only the problems, we wi...

Keep yourself clean and bright, for you are the window through which you must see the world.

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

You will always find what you are looking for. Think about the difference between two birds: a vulture and a hummingbird. Vultures soar high in the sky, looking and searching. What does a vulture find...

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

In recent years, an entire discipline of modern psychology has developed called cognitive behavioral therapy. This breakthrough teaching reveals that many problems, from eating disorders to relational...

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.

Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attitudes toward life. The longer I live the more convinced I become that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we res...

Joy is the very foundation of reality. Joy is where life began and where life is headed.

Harry Emerson Fosdick once told how as a child, his mother sent him to pick a quart of raspberries. Reluctantly he dragged himself to the berry patch. His afternoon was ruined for sure. Then a thought...

We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good l...

I suspect that this is the most important thing I’ve said in all my interviews and talks as well as in this book. It’s a truth that applies to more than writing. It applies to anything that is importa...

I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep everyone's expectations.

The deep truth is that our human suffering need not be an obstacle to the joy and peace we so desire, but can become, instead, the means to it.

Attitudes are more important than facts

In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson provides a wonderful analogy of what happens when we cultivate the virtues in our lives: W...

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

Core beliefs can be hard to change because they’ve generally been with us for a long time, and we assume that they’re true. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to changing our core beliefs is that they are s...

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

People by nature build, tear down, and rebuild. We build our hopes, get disappointed, and then search for renewed hope.

Attitude is an accurate monitor of where we fall on the spectrum of pride and humility.

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.

If you can’t get out of it, get into it.

Because of this we have hope: Two men look out through the same bars One sees mud, one sees stars.

is not just choosing to think happy thoughts. It’s choosing to clothe ourselves with an attitude of joy only accessed through the Holy Spirit.

Towards the end of his life, the great missionary, theologian, cultural critic (and even bishop!) Lesslie Newbigin gave an interview. His interviewer asked him an interesting question, made even more ...