In my middle years – my 20’s through my 40s – I was consumed with self-help books, some of which you who are reading this will be familiar.  Zig Ziglar’s See You at the Top was one.  I liked Zig’s admonition against “stinkin’ thinkin’.”  Here are a few of the Zig Ziglar quotes on which I feasted:

·       “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”

·       “Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.”

·       You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

·       If you don't plan your time, someone else will help you waste it.

Clement Stone was a Chicago businessman who for the entire second half of the 1900s published a periodical entitled Success Unlimited.   He "conceived of a monthly magazine to supply mental vitamins to revitalize those seeking self-help and inspiration...."  Here are a few gems from that magazine:

·       Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

·       Aim for the moon.  If you miss, you may hit a star.

·       Every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.

·       Tell everyone what you want to do and someone will want to help you do it.

Norman Vincent Peale published Guide Post Magazine and wrote The Power of Positive Thinking.

 

·       Go at life with abandon; give it all you got. And life will give all it has to you.

·       Go out of your way to talk optimistically about everything.

·       If you change your thoughts, you will change your life.

 

Last but not least in my pantheon of self-help gurus was Dale Carnegie and his How To Win Friends and Influence People.  Here are a few quotes from his writing:

·       You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

·       When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.

·       Life truly is a boomerang. What you give, you get.

I found a time schedule I set for myself in the summer of 1980, months before turning 40.  It shows a little bit of the pressure I put myself under applying the power of positive thinking to driving myself:

5:20 a.m.               Arise & stretch

5:30                       Bible & Prayer

6:00                       Run 4 ½ miles

7:00                       Breakfast & dress

7:45                       Depart for work

5:00 p.m.                              Depart for home

 

On top of this time schedule undoubtedly came an extensive to-do list for the 8 to 5 hours and then another for the 5 to 9 hours at home.

 

I have since learned to back off from thinking that I can outrun time and complete a to-do list by the end of a day. There is certainly value in being optimistic.  But there is a danger in ascribing 100% to all of the sayings above that kept me going through my younger years.  In my “second half of life,” I came to agree with Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr who said, “The basic sin of this cult [The Power of Positive Thinking] is its egocentricity. …  It helps [the adherents] feel good while they are evading the real issues of life.”

 

Some cultures other than mine value relationships more than time, and I now see merit in that.  For instance, in some cultures, there is a greater possibility that one will linger in a sublime moment with a fellow human being rather than breaking off that sweet time to rush off to the next appointment.  In the past I would have cut short a meaningful moment with someone because I knew I had to clear my to-do list by dusk.  I am finally seeing my way out of the trap of busyness that, as Niebuhr has said above, has enabled me to evade “the real issues of life.”  These other cultures may have a better grasp of truth – that positive thinking and productivity have their severe limits.  And it’s more of this truth that has set me free.