Attitude is Everything

I used to work for a face to face sales company and my job was to set up somewhere in the streets or a shopping centre with a clipboard, and try and sign passer-bys up to various charities. I would try and stop these people, trying to arouse their curiosity with an interesting first statement, but nonetheless, there were hundreds who would avoid you; they'd walk around you, look everywhere except at you, pretend they can't hear you when it's obvious they can, swear at you, stare you down, and the list goes on.

The company would send us on road trips around the state to do the same thing. There would be conferences to go to and 5 star resorts to stay at, and a whole lot of fantastic things to do. The actual work was very gruelling - it tested you, it made you stronger, and sometimes it broke you. When you spend all day every day getting ignored by hundreds of people just to catch the five or ten sign-ups, it gets a little depressing, or so one would think.

I quit the job because I was sick of the hours. It was a long day and I found myself having no time for anything or anyone else, basically all I did was work. Besides I thought that I was over it, that I was sick of talking to rude people every day. But now in hindsight, it's in fact more of the opposite.

I look back with such a fondness on those times that it blows even me away. At first I couldn't understand it, but over time and some hard thinking, the veil was lifted. You see, the job was very mentally gruelling and testing like I said. Sure, it never wore you out physically (at worst, sore feet from standing up all day), but by the end of most days, the mind just wanted to switch off. But during my time there, I developed a strong positive attitude for it was one of the companies requirements that you have to have a positive attitude and maintain it.

Instead of the expected reaction to rejection on the job, I was inspired. Every day when I woke up I said various affirmations 3 times in a row, taking me about ten minutes to kick the day off. They would revolve around sales, keeping the goal and target in mind and never backing down. Then when I got to work, I would take a five minute break every two hours to refresh my attitude. I'd have a smoke, put on some high energy music, and start encouraging myself. I might even you into the bathrooms and if no one was in there, look at myself in the mirror and slap myself, challenge myself to prove I'm not a wimp, and then walk back out. I used NLP (not explaining it here, look it up) to anchor positive feelings with squeezing my thumb. And the strangest thing of all, is that everything worked.

Instead of coming home depressed and mentally worn, I came home energetic and motivated. I was having a ball, if not for the long hours. So then I quit, leaving it all behind. But looking back, I loved those days. They were amazing. The people, the job, the experiences; it was all just so magnificent. And that's when I realised, that all my work with affirmations and attitude shaping had shaped the memory. I had anchored hundreds of positive feelings with that job. So now, when I thought about the job, I felt those feelings. It thought it was a profound discovery.

Then I thought, well, why doesn't every one do this? It would make the world a whole lot better if everyone was thinking positive, wouldn't it? But then I realised, there are people who are already doing it.

Religions all over the world are doing it this very second. They are meditating, praying, reading, all the while affirming their faith in their god. There attitude is one which is finding things to believe in and reasons to believe in them. It's a psychological program and it's working, for better or for worse.

When someone invests their life into Christianity for example, they are generally reading their bible most days, which in turn affirms their belief in god. They memorise verses to remind themselves of it's truth. Then they pray, which really is the same thing as affirmations. Anyone can pray to whichever god, and many of them think they are praying to the real god. And by praying, they are affirming god in their loves, his reality and his power. Then comes church. This part I think is really interesting. Here everyone is singing songs to 'god', once again affirming his truth in their lives. But it goes further.

There is a concept in sales called the 'jones' theory. Basically it is the idea that if everyone's doing something, then I should probably do it to. It applies to everything. It's just a natural, guiding human principle. And here it is in action in the church. Everyone singing together, praying together, dancing together, etc, is affirming their belief, but it is all the more potent with everyone doing it.

Or have you ever been at a Christian rally, and the altar call comes up at the end? At first, only a few people put their hands up to become Christians. Then, slowly at first, more people put their hands up, and then still more! It can get very strange, and sometimes even people who call themselves Christians will go and 'get saved' again. It's Jones theory in action.

So here we arrive at my final point. My ability to create a positive experience in my job, and thereby create fond memories is the ability of any human and indeed many of them are using it now. Using it does not prove that something is real or unreal however, it merely shows that even if it were not real, people would still believe in it. But if it were real, then no one would have any need to 'create' the experience, instead, God would come to them.

So Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Athiests, and everyone else, remember this -

Your attitude determines your beliefs, not whether something is real or not.

But this leads us onto an even more important question: how in the world can we then know if anything is real or not? If there is no way with which I can know if something is actually real, then I must assume it is not real. I could make myself believe in God, with affirmations and prayer and singing I could become a man of faith. But what would that serve if none of it is real? This is but one more reason why I don't believe in God.