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The red was a little difficult to read, but does your colour choice go along with the mood/tone of your response?
I the red color had the opposite affect from my purpose of using it. I’m a night owl, and often go online after work, which is usually after one in the morning. I find that reading bright fonts against dark backgrounds for too long tends to strain my eyes. Therefore I attempted to create a more soothing combination of colors when I posted. Not to mention I thought it looked cool
Anyway back to the subject at hand.
I wouldn’t say that the topic made me angry, because I don’t have an investment in it. However, I do get frustrated somewhat when I see people who are either trying to sell something as a “quick fix,” or an easy way to attain something. I see it almost every day in programs that relate to such things as weight loss, getting out of debt, making money, or becoming someone like the type of person one wishes to be, all without putting in real effort and commitment. They are sheepishly led to believe that it can all be purchased on video, audio, or a pill.
What leaves a bad taste in my mouth about it is that people who believe that such things are easily attainable by a quick fix also attribute the success of those individuals who have worked hard to attain their goals, to luck, and their own failures to “bad luck,” and other “unfortunate circumstances of life.”
An interesting side note is that my favorite quote regarding “luck” comes from one of these “self help gurus,” whom I’ve mentioned earlier. Earl Nightingale.
His definition of “luck,” is “Preparedness meeting opportunity.”
I am not saying that a person’s thought process and general outlook doesn’t have anything to do with their success.
In order for a person to achieve positive outcomes, they do have to believe that their actions will possibly yield success. Too often however, I see the key ingredient of “action,” and hard work only given a brief light in the subject matter of the “How to train your mind,” crowd.
The way that I see it, is that “positive thinking,” and ones general mind set can be compared to how vitamins work.
There are those “snake oil” type sales people who will attempt to convince the gullible that certain vitamins are a cure all for just about any ailment, from depression to physical disease.
When in fact vitamins are a catalysts for other factors in ones already existing physiology to which the main contributing factors are nutrition, life style and genetics. They are like small pieces of wood that when added to a fire can increase the intensity and the size of the flame, but without a fire that is already lit, they are useless.
Just as vitamins alone without proper nutrition, exercise, and a general healthy life style will not help someone become healthy, positive thinking alone will not do anything to achieve success either.
People who sell vitamin supplements and mind training programs tend to have several things in common. They both put their product in a light that will very strongly suggest that the product by itself can cause fast and significant changes in a person, while down playing those things that truly matter as a side note. Also there is ALWAYS more things to buy.
“Free” seminars are aimed at people to put them into a frenzied positive state of mind, at which point the sales pitch for the actual programs follows.
There are no miracles cures for the body or the mind. No quick fixes for diseases of the body, spirit or finances. If there were, then we wouldn’t need board certified doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists.
Millions of people could then simply buy a few books or pop a few pills, and by that alone could live a happy, healthy and productive life. It just doesn’t work that way.
Healthy people are healthy because of a COMBINATION of good genes, a healthy life style which may include some vitamin supplements and a healthy mind.
Successful people are Successful because they worked hard for their achievements through education (either through study in a class room, or the school of hard knocks), training themselves to see opportunist that the average person would miss, taking action when those opportunities surface, AND having a positive (but realistic) mind set.
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Thanks for your opinion.