I am learning to be positive. It is very tempting to think thoughts like, “This is going to be one of those days!” Do you know that every time I have thought I will have “one of those days,” I have been right?
The thing is that when you tell yourself that you will have a bad day, you expect things to go badly. When you expect everything to go wrong, you are already giving yourself the negative attitude that causes a bad day.
Try saying this instead. “This is going to be a great day!” I wonder if your outlook won’t be better and you find yourself having a pretty good day!
I used to have a habit of saying, “I hate this day!” when I was having a bad day. One day my mom pointed out that God made each and every day and that I have no right to call it bad. After all, “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)
I think your mother got it right. It is not a great day because I think it so or will it to be so. It is a great day because of the fact that God loves me so. Positive thinking will never make the day better if the paradigm is positive thinking that simply tries to ignore all the bad stuff happening. Pollyanna can only go so far unless there is a depth of character and faith (a “know so” faith) that goes with it.
What would you call someone who lived their life based on the teachings of Pollyanna? Would they be a pollyanist, or a pollist? The latter option sounds more like a painful condition.