Eliminating the Negative
12-Feb-08I want to share with you something that left me really enlightened. All through the years, I have tried to manage my work and time effectively and keep things organized. Usually, a lot of my work has to do with clicking pictures and recording all laughter events and happenings. As a result, I have an enormous collection of photographs and videos which need to be sorted on a regular basis.
In fact, once a journalist friend from UK, Peter, gave me a CD of 350 photographs from which I had to select the best. Quite a tedious task, I set about deleting the ones which were not good. As I plodded through, I realized only 10% of them were worth keeping, while the rest had to be eliminated. As I started the process, I felt good. I’ve always enjoyed the feeling of discarding and throwing away things which are not required. It gives me an innate satisfaction of the job being done.
I did the same with the photographs. In half an hour, I had deleted about 50 photographs and thought; I had done a great job. But, when I looked at the balance of nearly 300, my heart sank. The very idea that it would take hours stressed me out.
I stopped for a while, and suddenly thought of reversing the process. Instead of deleting, I started to select the good ones and copied them into a new folder. It was unbelievable. I finished the whole task within 15 minutes. I realized I had acted unwisely. Had I done this before, I would not have wasted so many hours.
This led me to reflect on life. We usually spend our entire time trying to eliminate rubbish from our lives. Though the process of elimination makes one feel good, we don’t realize is that we have a huge heap of negative waste that would take years of elimination. We get so involved in the cleaning process that we don’t have time for the positive elements of life and enjoy and feel its vibes.
Martin Seligman in his book, ‘Authentic Happiness’ emphasizes that we should not waste our time in finding what is wrong with us and other people, but to enhance the positive. Initially, whenever I visited the Laughter Clubs, I would point out the flaws in the exercises which annoyed many laughter leaders. Seeing them hurt and upset, I realized my mistake and reversed my approach. Instead of finding faults, I began to appreciate their efforts and praised their sessions. That worked wonders and made everyone happy.
I made a conscious decision to imbibe the logic of positive encouragement in every aspect of my life. For example, if you are jealous of someone; find the opposite of jealousy i.e. appreciation – cultivate appreciation and jealousy will just disappear.
I would like to bring the age-old wisdom from India –“You can never remove darkness from this world; the only way to remove the darkness is to light a lamp.” It was a good lesson for me not to focus on removing the negative, which is time-consuming and produces unconstructive feelings. Rather, I would spend time on cultivating the positive which takes less time and keeps me in high spirits.
My dear Madan. How wise is this message… You gave me a very good idea today! Thank you for sharing with us this positive attitude! This is so simple (to save the good ones instead of deleting the not so good ones!) that we tend to forget it might be easier and way more positive for us to focus on the good things - and not pay so much attention to the other things. Thank you! and have a great day! lots of love, joy and laughter. Your friend Linda
Comment by Linda Leclerc — February 17, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
Madan, as always, you are such an inspiration. I have been overwhelmed by the work I have taken on the past six months, although I have managed to remember some of the things you taught me….I end staff meetings with laughter, make a point of laughing individually with residents, and even had an 87yo call to me the other day to come speak gibberish with her! Her 83yo very proper sister asked me how long it took me to learn “that language”….and we all laughed!
When I read this, I thought of my problems dealing with my employees and how badly I feel when I continually point out all their shortcomings…..it’s time to focus on the positive! I will try this technique this coming week and let you know how it goes.
Again many thanks to you for positively influencing my life.
Loads of love and laughter to you….Sue
Comment by Sue Ansari — February 23, 2008 @ 2:18 am
Dr. Madan,
I was doing research on cheerfulness when I found your site. This article on positive reinforcement can relate to the animal world also. Dogs smile when they wish to cheer us up. Perhaps we should combine laughter clubs with dog parks. Your mission has exceptional value. May you be blessed.
Comment by Amelia Johnson — February 25, 2008 @ 4:55 pm
Hi Madan,
I love to read your writings. Thank you so much for reminding us to focus on ours and others’ strengths! I will turn on my lamp with my clients today!
Comment by Helen T. Whitley — March 3, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
Dear Dr. Kataria,
I wanted to say what an honor and blessing to have met you at the Harbin,CA Teacher Workshop
April 08. Your smile and laughter is worth a million and your heart is filled with love and
joy. Thank you for every moment you spent teaching us. Every day you shared positive uplifting
words that were healing to the soul. I will never forget what you said when we were meditating
~ breathe ~ for that person, say “I thank you”, “I love you”, “please forgive me”, “I am sorry”
in whatever order necessary. These words echo from the song ~ “Breathe on me” a song I shared
with you that as a Christian I grew up singing. I will continue to breath for you and your mission
to spread God’s love, joy and laughter, that lives will be changed and our world will be a better
place.
“May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing (through the experience
of your faith) that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over)
with hope. Romans 15:13
God Bless you! Bobbie Evans, Culloden, GA
Comment by Bobbie Evans — April 26, 2008 @ 10:25 pm