I was doing some blog surfing yesterday while drinking my morning coffee and came upon a blog that was focused on that blogger’s various chronic illnesses.

Now I’m not going to criticize this blogger – in fact, I’m not going to mention the particular blog.  Everyone who blogs does so for their own reasons and my point here is not to be critical of the topic this blogger has chosen to write about.  But my impression of that blog was that it was very focused on how bad this person felt all the time.

Writing can be a catharsis for helping you solve problems in your life and it could be that this person is using the blog in a cathartic way.

It’s About Where You Focus

It made me think, though, once again about the idea that we get more of what we focus on.

If we constantly focus on all the bad things in our life, we’ll see more of those things coming into our lives.  The flip side is that if we focus on the good things in our life, we’ll get more of that.

Chronic illness can be devastating for people and I would never suggest that someone can eliminate a chronic illness just through positive thinking.  I have diabetes – a chronic illness which can have very severe consequences.  Fortunately my diabetes is under control and I have very few side effects from the disease.  I’ve made a conscious decision to stay positive in spite of the illness.  However, I know that in order to stay as healthy as I can, I must follow my doctor’s advice on medication, diet, and exercise along with staying positive.

Downhill Is Simple

Working to grow your happiness power can be difficult.  It’s like walking uphill versus walking downhill.  It’s much easier to walk down that it is to walk up.  But only by walking up can we get to the highest point.

As your happiness power grows you have to keep moving upward and adding to it.  Since it’s very easy to go downhill we need to guard against letting ourselves get caught up in the negative thoughts.  When you start sliding down, the momentum builds and it gets easier and easier to slide further down.

However, if you keep building your happiness power, you’ll begin to see that going further uphill gets easier and easier.  You put foundations under yourself that keep you from sliding back.

So continue to face uphill, keep moving upward, keep building your happiness power.  Focus on the good things in your life and you’ll see them increase.  If you do find yourself sliding downhill, turn in the other direction and start moving uphill again.  Keep reaching for the summit.

To your happiness!