Positive thinking; Believe in your self and your dreams

A whole month has slipped by in silence, as far as my blog is concerned, but much has gone on behind the scenes. I have started, but not finished a few posts, and I will pick up those threads later, or I will discard them.

I have spent a lot of time with grandchildren lately, and I count my blessings for every moment. Each one of them is absolutely precious. They offer fresh eyes with which to view life.

I recently had the privelege of spending a day with students in Ryegate, at a small Montana school. The next day, I met many more kids while signing books at the Montana Winter Fair in Lewistown. I got to spend the night at a friend's house and get better acquainted with her three wonderful kids. She took her horse, "Starlight" to the WinterFair so that kids who came to my table could see him "in person," pet him, and get his "autograph. I witnessed, as I have many time before, the natural bond between child and horse.

Tomorrow, I will visit 130 fifth graders at Lockwood school in Billings and, in the evening, be on hand at a gift shop downtown, to talk to people and sign my books. As I have said many times, children are my first love and my best inspiration. When I talk to them, I often quote Napoleon Hill, who inspired me to go for the career of my choice. In his book, Think and Grow Rich, he said, "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

It's easy to allow adversity (or what seems to be adversity) to throw a person off that tract, but I was reminded this morning, as I picked up a copy of Hill's book at my son's house, that positive thinking is the answer to whatever situation in which we find ourselves. In order to think positively, however, it is necessary, as Napoleon Hill says, to prepare the mind by clearing out three impediments to success: indecision, doubt, and fear. "Indecision is the seedling of fear. Indecision crystallizes into doubt, the two blend and become fear."

Hill also mentions an even greater enemy, which, he says, is more deeply seated and more often fatal than all fears. He calls it "susceptibility to neageive influences." As I perused this chapter on fear, this morning, I asked myself just how much negative influences have exacerbated fear in me this past month. Then an even more important question came to mind. "Have I been a negative influence for others, increasing their fear, and thus promulgating negative thinking in them?"

This is the food for thought that I will be chewing on today and the days ahead as I work to replace doubt with hope, fear with courage, and indecision with action.

Resolutions

It seems every time a new year rolls around, I tend to think back on the past, wishing in a lot of instances that I could have "do-overs." Isn't that what New Years resolutions are all about. We know we can't change what's been done, but it eases our consciences to think we can prevent making the same mistakes again. I've been known to join the tradition of those who write out their list of resolves, thinking that doing so will make this coming year a better one—only to give up on most, if not all of them, by the time the year's half over.

Recently, I've been eating chocolate like crazy. I do it to assuage the guilt that comes from realizing I was going to lay off the sweets a year ago in order to develop a healthier, handsomer body. But my resolve didn't last long, so in the back of my mind, I hear voices saying. "Come New Years day, we are going to quit putting chocolate in our morning coffee. We are going to get more exercise. We will lay off the fudge and ice cream." My answer to those scheming voices? "All righty, then. We've got one more day to down all this scrumptious Christmas candy and birthday cake."

Yep, come January 1—ohmygosh! that's tomorrow—we'll try once again to get back on that diet we started last year. The getting on isn't so hard, but like in bull riding, my trouble is staying on for the 8 second ride (or it's equivalent—8 weeks would be a record, I think.)

So maybe not. I think this year I'll forget all resolutions save one. I resolve to be kinder to myself by putting down the whip of self-flagellation and enjoying life, minute by precious minute. I'll do what I can—what I want to—with love in my heart and laughter in my voice. I'm going to strike certain words from my vocabulary...words those voices in the back of my head tend to harp on, even when I refrain from saying them out loud. "You gotta, you oughta, we should! You should've, could've, if only we would've."

No, I've decided that at my age, it's time to admit I'm fallible, that I won't always do everything perfectly, won't always be on time with all the work I lay out for myself, won't remember everything I'm supposed to remember. Like Al Franken's "Stuart Smally" (remember SNL?) I'll say, "and that's okay."

Life has been very good to me. I am surrounded by loved ones, and new and wonderful people come into my life all the time. I will allow myself to be blessed by them and accept their love and kindness to me with a heart full of gratitude. That is my resolution for 2008. I think it's going to be a very good year.

P.S. I don't mean I'll quit working, because I love what I do, especially the writing. As I come to the closing chapters of the second book of my trilogy, I'm hard to pull away from the keyboard.

I wish a very happy, be-kind-to-yourself New year to all of you.