Say Good Things
Saying bad things about others keeps you in a negative mindset. say nice things instead to guide yourself towards a positive state of mind. Words can help us find the light, but when we’re not careful they can also cause great darkness.
~ Kemmy Nola
There is an old saying that “Familiarity breeds contempt”. In many ways, we know that to be the case. When we are familiar with people, when we are around them all the time, instead of showing our best selves, we sometimes show our worst. For some crazy reason, we convince ourselves that family, friends, and co-workers do not deserve our attention and respect at all times because “they will understand”.
Guess what. They do not understand. Instead, they wonder why we snap at them, why we are critical of them, why we never have anything positive to say to them. As Kemmy Nola reminds us, saying bad things about others puts us into a negative mindset. From that negativity, then, our words and actions often flow.
You would think that we would want to support, cherish, and respect our family, friends, and co-workers since, for a very basic reason, we are around them all the time and need their support in return. That would be the selfish reason for being positive around and about them. The more altruistic reason is that Jesus would want us to be positive.
It does not take a lot of time and energy to say something good to or about another person. On the contrary, it takes more emotional energy to summon up negative thoughts and feelings. Whenever we do, that negativity not only flows out of us, some of it remains behind, tainting our souls.
We want the best for ourselves, that is a part of our very human makeup. However, we often bring the very worst to ourselves by thinking and speaking negatively. If we want to be happy and healthy, we have to act happy and healthy. The feeling will “catch up” with our thoughts and words.
Lent is not a time to be negative. Lent is a time to put on our positive face and to do as much positive good as possible in the world around us. The wonderful thing about doing so is that it makes us feel positive about ourselves as well.
FAITH ACTION: At least for today, if not the remainder of Lent, try to say two or three things nice to your spouse, child, friend, or co-worker.