Destroy Your Negative Thinking

One day not long ago, while standing on the corner of a busy street in Philadelphia, talking to a friend, along came an old man. He was a decrepit old man with swollen, tearful eyes, and his unshaven face was drawn and withered. His lips were blue with unclean sores. His toes were pushing through his worn- out shoes. His clothes were torn to rags. He had seen better days. I thought, how dreadfully poverty has gnawed at you. I was stunned for the moment. With a look of sadness, and with a dirty bloated hand thrust forward, he pleaded for a few pennies. He got a few more pennies; I got a little more sense.

As I pondered over the circumstances which had caused the deplorable condition of this man, and had left him a wreck in its ruins, I began to think: It might have been you!

What happened to this old man? What precipitated his deplorable condition? What caused such poverty? Why had fortune turned into misfortune? His plight may have been owing to over indulgence, to grief, to envy, to jealousy, to hatred, to prejudice, to dread, to self- pity, to temptation, or to discouragement. What-ever it was had changed his outlook, his attitude, his process of thinking and his entire pattern of living.

Desperation, despair, discouragement, disappointment, sorrow and sadness were indelibly stamped in the lines of his face. He was a picture of his thoughts, a victim of circumstances and a slave to poverty.

In analyzing the plight of this old man, I came to the conclusion that his condition was a definite result of that desperate little enemy– negative thinking.

Negative thinking is a sneaky little enemy which silently steals its way into a man’s consciousness and, like a thief at night, steals not his purse, but robs him of that power which makes him poor indeed. It is a sinister and destructive influence that works night and day to prey on a man’s soul. It is man’s worst enemy, and life’s meanest foe. It is worse than war, and largely the cause of war. It is the curse of the human race. It is as blind to reason as an owl is to light. It turns friends into enemies and enemies into foes. It robs a man of reason. It stirs up hate, greed, selfishness, cynicism, pessimism, anger, suspicion, rivalry, jealousy, revenge, lust and envy. It tears down confidence, undermines health, impairs character and causes poverty.

An old legend relates that the devil was thrown into bankruptcy. Out of all his tools, the creditors permitted him to keep one. The tool he selected was the wedge of negative thinking. Asked why he liked this tool better than all the rest, the devil explained, “It is because this is the one tool which I can use when all others fail. Let me get that little wedge into a man’s consciousness, and it opens everything else.

That wedge has opened more doors for me than all other weapons combined.”

Someone asked one of the world’s greatest explorers what exploration he enjoyed most. His answer was, “My personal preference is for sitting in an old-fashioned rocking chair and exploring the undiscovered regions inside my own mind.”

In exploring the undiscovered regions inside the mind, man discovers he has interest. His interest creates a desire. There are two kinds of desire. One is physical. One is mental. Subsistence and propagation satisfy the physical desire. Thoughts and ideas satisfy the mental desire.

There are two kinds of thoughts. Positive thoughts which are creative. Negative thoughts which are destructive. I often compare positive thoughts to light, and negative thoughts to darkness. Darkness is nothing. It is the absence of light. Turn on the light, and there is no darkness.