Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Do You Know The Secret?

Awhile back, I started to read The Secret. I started to read it, understand it and really want to live it. I'm not religious, not too spiritual and really had no basis in wanting to live this way, other than just wanting to bring my life to what I envision it to be. So I started reading, and because I am a mom of two kids, I put the book down at some point and didn't pick it up again. Ever.

The other night during one of my non-sleeping episodes, I was going through my TiVO programs at about 4am and decided to watch Oprah. The episode was all about people who lived their lives according to the power of positive thinking. Think that good things will happen and they will. Think that you will get what you want and it will come. Envision your life a certain way and you will achieve that.

I'll admit, I am a negative person. I don't know why, I don't know what made me that way, but I tend to find the not-so-great qualities in something before I see the great ones. I always think there's something going on behind-the-scenes and you don't get something for nothing. I throw out sweepstakes entries and delete e-mails that say I won something. I guess a better word is skeptical as opposed to negative. Well, maybe not.

Right now, I am at a crossroads at my life with respect to my work and career and I am trying to make a decision that will not only impact me but will impact my whole family. And my kids. And that's where my problem is. I'm afraid to do anything that will negatively impact my kids. Right now, although I am not thrilled with certain aspects of where I am, it is working for us. I'm working part time, I'm home part time, I work on my business part time, and I'm able to spend some quality time with my family. Moving forward with my decision, well, I'm not sure of where things will wind up, and it's possibly that they wind up in a worse place than I am now. But the other side is that I could wind up in a place that I love, that my kids will love, where we will all be so much happier. We just might not be able to afford to eat on the ride there.

So I question the power of positive thinking. I'm a CPA. An accountant. An analyst to a fault. I make lists. Lots of them. Pros and cons, things to do, things I want to do, reasons for doing things. I do alot of research and am very into facts. Cold hard facts. But my fact right now is that I'm not happy. I don't know if making this decision will make me happy, which makes me pretty afraid to take the plunge. I wonder if I adopt the power of positive thinking, I mean really adopt it, will that make it work?

I just accidentally knocked my glass of iced tea over on my desk onto all of the paperwork I was just doing. Might that be a sign? Sigh.

4 comments:

  1. LOL. Well, I'm very religious, tend to think the best of everyone, and while not gullible (I delete those emails too), I don't think that we can positively think ourselves into everything we want.

    However, I do think we can choose whether or not to be happy pretty much no matter what our circumstances. And I think often things are what we make of them.

    Not sure if that helps you or not. It's really hard to know what path to take, when given a choice. I've been in that situation once -- whether or not to move. I had reasons to not be happy where I was, although I had tried to make the best of it and probably could have stayed and been happy.

    But I am SO glad we moved.

    I think we can analyze the facts to a point, but sometimes, when faced with a decision, we have to just go with our gut.

    I hope you make peace with whatever choice you end up pursuing. :-)

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  2. I have a hard time with making decisions, too, but usually end up pleased once I have actually made it.

    I'm sort of an optimist too, and always figure that I can just change again if it doesn't work out.

    I know that you have a difficult choice ahead of you, but I say just go for it.

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  3. Oh.. this is me to a T (minus the CPA accountant stuff). But I am a pessimist at heart. It is hard for me to to anything without making a list, researching, and then researching my research.

    I tried to get into the Secret.. But my "ways" were too powerful to change right now..

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  4. I think it helps to have a positive attitude when you tackle something, but I don't live my life expecting only the best. I think I would spend more time disappointed when things didn't work out if I did that. I try to go with the flow, but again, I'm not always successful at that. I think there's some truth to "the secret" and positive thinking. But I just don't buy into all of it. I guess I'm too rational and pragmatic.

    I hope you find something that will help you. I really feel for you and this dilemma. It's such a big decision and I wish you the best as you try to decide what to do.

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