HEALTH
Mind Is All By Linda Lombardo
“A positive attitude is a mindset that helps you see and recognize opportunities.” “A positive attitude means positive thinking. It is optimism and maintaining a positive mindset.” “Positive thinking is a mental and emotional attitude that focuses on the bright side of life and expects positive results.” I don’t know about you, but I was taught in school that you never define a word using that word. So, most of these online definitions leave me no closer to understanding what a positive outlook might be or how to get one. A bit negative of me, I know, as I search for this elusive thing called a positive outlook. As a little girl, one of my favorite books was Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter, written in 1913. If you’re not familiar with the book, or the subsequent movie starring Haley Mills, or any of the “Glad Books” series, the story is about a little orphaned girl who loses her mother at an early age and then loses her father, a missionary. Pollyanna is sent to live with her wealthy but stern Aunt Polly, who takes no prisoners when it comes to positivity. You see, Pollyanna plays a game, taught to her by her father, called the Glad Game. It’s about finding the ‘glad’ in the sadness or misfortune. Aunt Polly initially wants none of it. In her mind, life is not about gladness. It’s about responsibility and obligation. In fact, the whole town is stuck in its story about life. Everyone has a story of loss, sadness, missed opportunity, and more. And with no one to shake them out of their stories, they live their quiet lives, going through the motions … but not really happy; just resigned.
Here’s an example, in which Pollyanna explains the Glad Game to Nancy, the housemaid:
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Photo by Bekka Mongeau from Pexels
One by one, Pollyanna touches their lives, which at first is jolting to the townspeople. “Don’t touch my story of personal tragedy. Don’t dare tell me to be happy with all that’s going on in my world.” And being so young, it would have been easy to write off Pollyanna’s natural positive outlook as that of a child, who hasn’t really experienced the world yet. Except, she had.
