Positive Thinking – or you can’t always get what you want!

I was told recently while on a course you can achieve anything if you really want to. Then I was told this again by someone I know on Facebook! In fact I often get told this when I dare tell anyone that I am struggling with something!

The implication it seemed to me on the first instance that because felt very upset that I was not able to grasp what in fact I was desperately trying to learn was somehow due to my own lack of effort, not wanting it enough or not trying hard enough; the other because I dared write about my situation, my disappointments and how hard it is sometimes and not agree that positive thinking was always the way forward, that I believe that you need to see things as they really are and go through a process and sometimes that process is grief before you accept what you can have and not strive frustratingly for that you can not.

And I in fact know that's crap.

If the person/people who said that has up to this point got everything they have wanted – and they often say they have through thinking positively -  then lucky them! Yes they may or may not have worked hard for what they have, but I have too and I do not always succeed or get what I want.  They have probably put a lot of effort into what the do or have done and deserve to succeed in what they do.

But it is just simply NOT true that you can achieve/get everything you want simply because you want it enough or even because you work at it hard enough and try hard enough.

Yes it helps. You have to work for what you want or need and it helps to really want it, but it just does not always work that way and if the person who said this has not learned this yet it is going to be a hard lesson when they do. And every one learns it one day.

One reason you can not always get what you want or achieve what you want is it is not always up to you, others wants, needs and actions can get in the way of what you want. And rightly too! None of us is an island.

I guess the more single minded you are and the less you care about others needs, intentions and concerns the more you may get what you think you want, but in the end everyone finds that unless they railroad over all barriers including other people there will be a time when they won't get what they want however much they want it. 

So it's rubbish, but being told that by someone still hurts - even though I know it is crap it was still a direct and deliberate dig at me because I was really finding the course we were on together at the time hard. 

Don't some people love sticking the knife in and doing it with a smile as if they are trying to be helpful- when both you and they know it's a knife! 

I am always tempted to say how it’s like to have to be positive because I am Positive,  HIV positive? And how well you have to know yourself and how positively you have to live your life if you are going to manage to survive being HIV positive, mentally and emotionally

But I know I am right anyway - you can't always get what you want, in the words of the Rolling Stones

For example for many years I wanted Barry to leave the sea & start a business with me years ago but he would not. And due to the nature of the business unless he came home form sea and helped with it  I could not start that business as long as I was with him. I could have left him I guess and set up with someone else, but the other thing I truly want, is to be with him.

So I had a decision to make, what did I most care about, success in business or being with my husband. Ironically I did get this thing I wanted and through having HIV as Through having HIV Barry lost his job at sea and then together we started this business. >

But like everything I have found to get what you want you also often have to lose something. In this case I only got the business because we both lost our health!

Other examples in my life are:

I hugely wanted to have a natural birth and did everything I could to ensure I would, but my body and my baby had other ideas, so I had the opposite an emergency Cesarean- don't tell me that was because I did not want a natural birth enough or try enough? And believe me in those days I was a very positive person. If I had insisted on a natural birth, I would have lost my baby!

I always wanted a university degree that I don’t have one or why I can not be bothered to go fully into it here but it was not because I did not want it enough or work hard enough. Briefly I was the wrong sex and background in an age that girls like me who went to secondary school were expected to either marry young or go to work at 15, I did not marry young so I went to work at 15.The boys in my family were treated differently - they both got university degrees and both have/have PHDs That is how it was for women - and not to long ago!

I did make up for it later when I trained and qualified as a teacher, but I did not have the educational background to get on a degree course so I came away with a Cert Ed with Distinction. I still have hopes of that degree but so far it alludes me mostly because I would have to pay and no longer have the money.

I could go on but I am too angry.  #**/+%

It always makes me angry when people tell me you can have anything you want if you try hard enough, really want it and think positively. It makes me more angry when they try to tell me that I do not always get what I want because I am not positive enough or don’t want it enough or do not work or try hard enough – I am and do  all those things!

Getting what you want is simply not always in your control, well not if you want to consider other people and their needs. And if you think it is then you are wrong and it will be a nasty shock when you find this out.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone