This morning I was excited to receive an email containing an, apparently, new blog post by Lawrence Block. I read it and enjoyed it and immediately knew I wanted to blog about it so I headed on over to LB's site to copy and paste a teaser paragraph when I found out the post wasn't new at all!
That's okay, the topic of the post is timeless so it doesn't matter. The subject of LB's post is negative thinking and that is something I have been guilty of for many, many, years.
Toward the end of his post LB writes:
Each of us has a ruling negative principle to which we’ve proved as loyal as the Shreveport Schlepper to his. Any of these ring a bell?
I’m not good enough.
It’s not safe to let people know the real me.
Writing is a struggle.
I’m boring.
I’m too old.
No one wants to hear what I have to say.
I’m stupid.
Success would separate me from the people I love.
I’d go on, but you can figure out yours on your own. And why not? It’s been running in your head all your life.
All. Your. Life.
When I read the negative affirmation, "Success would separate me from the people I love," it was eerie, that's exactly what I believed for years.
And then it happened anyway. It felt as though God, or the universe, or fate, or I-know-not-what decided to take that particular excuse away from me and give me a kick in the pants.
So I'm writing now and my writing is about the only thing I do have but, you know what? It feels good.
Oh, in the quotation LB referred to the Shreveport Schlepper. That's explained in his post and it's one of the best stories I've ever read.
Link:
The Power of Negative Thinking
