The Seven Powers for Self Control

Lesson 3:  The Power of Attention

What you focus on you get more of.

This is a hard concept to understand well.  After all, we are taught in this society, that if we focus and work hard for something, we can make it happen.  Our understanding of this is simply that if we want something we just work for it and if we work hard enough, it will happen.   The part that very few seem to understand is that it also works in reverse.  When we focus on bad stuff, we get more bad stuff.  It’s as simple as that.

Whether you think you can or can't, either way you are right.

Henry Ford

We all know people who tend to focus on the bad stuff; their glass is always half empty.  I met a woman recently who was this way.  When I remarked at how glad I was that the fog had burned off and the sun had come out, she responded that there was no way the day would be good when it had gotten off to that kind of nasty start.  When I answered her in return that it had to get better from there, her retort was that there was just no way it possibly could be.  I tried one more time, “I hope that you have only good things from here on out today.”  Her response, “Well, there’s just no way; I don’t think that will happen.”  I found myself anxiously trying to move away from her.  I was very happy, after driving in extremely dense fog for four hours, to see the sun and know that I was safe in my destination.  I’m not sure that this woman would ever feel safe.  Maybe she had some devastating news to start her day, I don’t know, but I do know just being with her made me feel bad and she didn’t want it to change.

What a miserable way to live your life!  Remember the Charlie Brown character, Pigpen?  He was always surrounded with a cloud of dirt.  So is this woman, but her ‘dirt’ is of her own making.  She is choosing to focus on the negative things in her life.  And what you focus on you get more of.  Like attracts like, so if you choose to focus all day on the fact that you woke up late so everything will be wrong today, it will.  It’s just as easy to switch your focus to include, “Well, it’s got to be better from here on out.”  It’s a fifty/fifty chance either way, but if you predetermine what will happen by your attitude, there is NO chance of a good day. 

 This is especially true when you are working with children.  I have seen time after time when a teacher or parent is focusing on what they don’t want a child to do, they get exactly that.  Why?  Because they’ve already laid the groundwork for that outcome.  There was a little boy, preschool age, several years ago who loved coming to school.  This was his first educational experience and he was excited about it.  Now, sitting still and listening were not habits he had learned, at all, yet, so his teacher, who had limited experience in a setting such as this, was not comfortable with his behaviors and how to ‘control’ him.  Her form of ‘positive discipline’ was to seat him beside her at all times.  If she moved around the room, she held his wrist and made him follow her.  At the end of the class time, she would meet the parents, sometimes waiting in the street for them, to share the issues of the day.  And there always were issues.  It got so bad, that the parent would greet the child with, “Well, what did you screw up today?”  It’s no wonder this little guy got to the point that he hated school.  He was never allowed to be successful.  They were all set for him to do wrong and he did.  Who wouldn’t under those circumstances?  What they focused on, they got more of.  

Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye, and you will be drawn toward it.

Napoleon Hill

No doubt this young man needed to learn how to be a good listener and how to remain focused in his new environment, but my great fear is that the pattern for his education was set in this first experience and that the rest of his educational life will be colored by the beginning.  I know that his next two years were not much better so the chances of him finding school enjoyable and being successful are probably pretty slim.  You know how teachers love to ‘share’ in the faculty lounge and the word has gotten around that this young man is a problem…therefore, he probably will be.

Why is it that we human beings seem to prefer to focus on the bad things rather than the good ones?  I believe that we have been programmed by very well-meaning people who were trying to protect themselves and us.  The idea that if you don’t set your sights too high then you won’t be hurt, seems to pervade our society, when just the opposite is just as true.  We may well face heartbreaks and failures in anything that we try to do, especially if it is new to us, and if we let those failures stop us from trying again, then we have chosen to limit our future.  It didn’t just happen to us, it happened because of us.  What do you think the chances are for this young man to believe in himself; to find any self-worth there?  While his parents love him immensely, they, as well as the educators, have told him repeatedly that he really isn’t capable of being successful.  He is destined to “screw up.”

I would hope that this young man will happen along someone in his life who will break the pattern and tell this young man just how lovable and capable he really is.  I hope that they look beyond the behaviors that, by now, I’m sure are very much habit, and see the young man who has a remarkable intelligence and sense of humor.  His creativity knows no bounds and when he is challenged, he is more than capable of following the rules and enjoying learning.  I know because I had the young man in summer camp-an educational, creative setting for the summer.  I found him to be a challenge to my teaching skills, merely to stay ahead of him.  He pushed me to my limits in keeping him challenged and occupied.   The difference was, I expected him to do well…and he did.  I greeted his parents with the good things he had done throughout the day.  Unfortunately, this experience only lasted the summer and then he went back to school where the teacher were “ready for him.”

 It’s just as easy to find good things.  Sometimes, for a young man with the history that this one has, you have to look hard at first, but there are positives and the more you focus on the positives, the more you will find.  The more success he had, the more success came.  Parents, child, and teacher focused on the good stuff, not the bad.  It was a choice we all made.  It’s a choice you can make. 



I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

Thomas Edison

Happiness Is....Love

When I was a kiddo, there was a musical entitled, "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown."  This play was based on the cartoon character created by Charles Schulz and included all the cast of characters from the Peanuts gang.  I loved all of the songs but the one that still runs through my head every time I hear someone say happiness is, is this one. 

Now in this song happiness is:

• Finding a pencil
• Pizza with sausage
• Telling the time
• Learning to whistle
• Tying your shoe for the very first time
• Playing the drum in your own school band
• Walking hand in hand
• Two kinds of ice cream
• Knowing a secret
• Climbing a tree
• Five different crayons
• Catching a firefly and setting him free
• Being alone every now and then
• Coming home again
• Morning and evening, daytime and nighttime
• Having a sister
• Sharing a sandwich
• Getting along
• Singing together and those who sing with you

The song finishes with "For happiness is anyone and anything at all, that's loved by you." 

I think I love this song because it makes the world so simple.  Remember when you were younger and loving really was a simple thing?  You loved your parents and your grandparents.  Sometimes you loved your brothers and sisters (OK, you always loved them but you didn't always like them).  You loved ice cream.  We each had our own lists of the things we loved.  It was simple.  It was easy.


And then we grew up and love became a very complicated thing.  We discovered that when we love we open ourselves up for hurt and sometimes the hurts were so bad that we determined to never love again, or we'd only love a little bit.  I haven't figured out how to do that yet.  It seems that when I love, whether it's my son, or my family, or my friends, or even my dog,  I love with all of my heart.  And yes, I do get hurt sometimes. 

But isn't that what life is about?  Whether we decide to risk or not is a choice.  Whether we love or not is a choice.  I get so irritated with people who say they've "fallen OUT of love."  Didn't they choose to fall IN love?  Love isn't a feeling.  There are feelings that come with love, but love is a choice that you make.  It's action that you take. You decide to love someone, and if you are fortunate enough to have chosen a mate for life, you choose each day to treat them with love or not.

Love is a noun, yes, but love is also a verb.  It shows action, it's not meant to be a passive feeling that comes and goes.  It's supposed to be what you do.  When you love someone you choose to do kind things for them, you choose to say nice things to them and about them, you choose to love them.  There are days when it is more difficult to do this, but it is still a choice that you make and you make it knowing that, yes, today is a bad day, but tomorrow will be better and I will love you all days.

Think about it.  When you first met your partner, you decided during the first date whether or not you liked certain things about them:  the way they dressed, the way they talked, the way they treated you.  Based on that first date, you made a choice for a second date, and then a third date, until the day you decided to spend the rest of your life together.  You made a lot of choices for love. 

I am amazed to hear people already talking about Will and Cate and whether or not their marriage will last.  This comes, of course, from history and the feeling of disappointment that we all shared when his parent's fairy tale marriage ended.  Will these two young people who live in the spotlight of the world be able to manage all of life and stay together?  They've only been married two days and already people are asking the question.

You see, I believe that whether we love or not is our choice.  I love many people.  I do my best to love everyone although I'm not always successful at it.  There are just some people who, it seems to me, make it very difficult to love them.  Try as you might, they don't want to be loved and as much as I'd like to say, "Fine, have it your way!" I don't.  I can't.  Because if I do, then I'm giving up...on them, on living, and on myself. 

For if we don't have love, then what good can anything else be?  Love is all the good stuff and I would much rather surround myself with the good stuff than all the rest.  Love really is as simple as Charlie Brown and the Peanuts characters make it.  It's choosing everyday to find something good in everyone and everything.  It's seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty.  I think this is the biggest reason I love working with children.  They haven't yet learned that there even is a half empty glass.  To them all the world is half full.  They relish every experience.  They can hardly get to sleep because the day has been so great and they know that tomorrow will be just as great or better. 
Because, Happiness is anyone and anything at all...that's loved by you!  It's your choice.

What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner. ~Colette