Possibility thinking for the unemployed, adversity victims and the disabled

How often do adults tell a small child “Don’t touch that jar! Don’t climb the window… Don’t carry that box, there’s a small box…” If only mother uses less expensive décor she need not frustrate the “young explorer.” A little boy quickly shoves a stool by the window to watch the parade but the well-meaning aunt holds him up killing the joyful ascent of the “mountain climber” to the mountain peak to enjoy the view.

Thus from the beginning of life, when human energy is most active, all good possibilities to acquire independence is crushed out by the all-knowing and self-righteous adults. Consequently the child’s ideas and good will are stunted. What is worse is that the child is not able to believe in life’s numerous possibilities since his confidence is eroded. Unfortunately not all adults understand the secrets of childhood and therefore fail to respect the little ones.

Possibility thinking

In essence, possibility thinking is the management of ideas. Management is the control of resource in order to minimize waste and maximize the development of latent possibilities. Ten thousand ideas flow through the average mind daily. A vast majority of the ideas are negative. Possibility thinking is therefore the discipline separation of negative thoughts from positive thoughts. Positive thoughts are those that hold undeveloped potential good.

Impossibility thinkers are people who instinctively react negatively to a possibility-laden idea. They impulsively look for reasons why it can’t be done. They quickly abort an idea and forget about it. The possibility thinker looks at every idea to see if it has possibilities. If it does, he takes an option out of the idea. He does not let it slip by.

If you are laid off work, you’re lucky!

The most dynamic of my aunts is Nena Mobley. Known for her sewing and cooking she kept busy taking particular job orders. She divorced my uncle Salo during the Japanese time. After the war, she married an elderly Pentagon man. She went with him to America and got herself employed.

Mama Nena was laid off work during the 1982 US economic recession. When I visited her in Charlottesville where her American husband retired as an invalid, she enthusiastically showed me her hobby-craft projects. She said, “Precious, when I was laid off work, I thought myself lucky. Otherwise I would not have guts enough to quit my job and start a business of my own. I then asked God if I have a talent, please help me turn it into a business.”

Both Mama Nena and her friends were getting tired of making crafts and giving them away. So they finally decided to start a gift shop with things on consignment. After all she has an empty room by the garage. They began by organizing their friends and soon they had 50 names of people they knew whom made crafts. They had a garage sale and what didn’t sell, the Goodwill got. They got $ 600 for stuff they thought was really junk. They thought, “If people will come out in the country for a garage sale, they should come for handmade things.”

‘God is my No. 1 partner’

In the first month they had over 600 people and had gross sales of $2,533.22. But before they formally began their business they had a long talk with God. Mama Nena says, “He is our Number On Partner.”

They now have 94 people with lovely handmade things in their place. As she looks back, she can’t remember any negative thoughts about this. They just felt like it had to be God’s idea. They could not have done all this as fast as they have without Him. Mama Nena never underestimates the value of an idea. She and her friends were able to manage properly every positive idea.

Turning my millstone into milestone

John Prunty was known throughout his community as “the roadrunner man”. On June 6, 1973, John took his usual 21- minute run not knowing it would be his last. John, along with the rest of the five- member construction crew, scrambled onto the roof of a small home. He was atop a scaffold when his foreman called him for a tool. In reaching for it, John stepped forward, and instantly a cinder block gave way under his weight. He fought the impulse to jump. But it was too late. He was already airborne and out of control from his momentum.

His flight ended with terrible finality. His 160 pounds landed with full force upon his head. John says, “I still shudder when I recall the grinding sound of crunching vertebrate. My body’s trajectory, coupled with momentum, tried to force my forehead against my chest in pretzel-like fashion. Instantly I was aware I had lost feelings in my leg. The pain was so severe. I felt as if my head were suspended only by a thread. I struggled to stay conscious.”

The rescue squad arrived and efficiently went about preparing to place a stretcher beneath him. At the hospital, the neurosurgeon who took his case lifted him onto an X-ray table. A short time later the doctor brought him the unhappy confirmation that his neck was indeed broken. “I had learned to pray as a child, so now once again I turned to God.”

Words from the wheelchair president

Tiiiiiiivvhrough the pain and confusion of his traumatic, potentially mortal, and life-changing injury, John recalled the words of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt “All we have to fear is fear itself.” Following that was a positive reaction – a rededication and reaffirmation of love. There were prayers of supplication to God, whose master plan undoubtedly was to unfold in the coming days.

John felt as if he were wrapped like a mummy from the chest down. It was frightening because it meant the feeling was gone. During the following week, it became more apparent that the major effect of John’s injury would be permanent. He continued to hold out hope though, that a miracle would occur and mend the spinal cord to the extent that it could again process messages.

One day John, a young husband and father, overhearing the nurses realized he was a quadriplegic, a victim of broken neck, paralyzed from the neck down for life!

“I decided my accident was something I could never escape from. It would become a millstone around my neck, or if I practiced possibility thinking, I could turn my millstone into a milestone! I decided to do just that! I have accepted me as I am rather as I wish I were.”

Today, John manages his own business, serving surrounding hotels and his community with a professional babysitter placement service. He also gives many hours as a volunteer counselor in the NEW HOPE crisis telephone counseling center in the Crystal Cathedral.

Prayer – the power that pulls everything together

We all know what it means to be burned out. There are people who get burned out professionally, creatively. There are institutions that get burned out productively. There are families and marriages that get burned out. There are individual personalities that lose their enthusiasm for life. The problem with burnouts is that they inevitably lead to crash landings.

God does not want to see our lives crash. That’s why He’s given us a solution to the burnout problem – PRAYER. Prayer is the umbilical cord that allows us to draw nourishment from a source that we, like unborn infants, can neither see nor fully know or comprehend – GOD. Prayer is the power that pulls everything together successfully. ( Reference: Tough Times Never Last, But Tough

People Do! By Robert H. Schuller) (For feedback email to precious.soliven@yahoo.com)