Choose to Be a Positive Force
Author: Sam Quick, Ph.D., and Alex Lesueur, Jr., M.S.L.S., University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service

Your life is maintained by energy that constantly pours into you and through you. Where does this energy come from? Some would say that it comes from the cosmic energy that pervades the universe and is an essential element of all matter. Those who are spiritually inclined might say that the gift of life and the energy that sustains it ultimately come from God.

On a more immediate level, however, we can say that your life energy comes from solid foods, liquids, and the air you breathe, as well as from the sun and from the extremely fine atmospheric cosmic energy that continually surrounds us. Through the intelligent use of willpower, we can draw more extensively on the energy reserves within us and around us. In all these ways, immense amounts of energy pour into your brain and heart and all the tissues of your body.

In addition to nourishing the cells and atoms of your physical body, the stream of incoming energy is employed each time you think, speak, or act. As you use energy in these ways, you inevitably put your personal stamp on it—in either a positive or negative way—and send it back into the world where it plays a small but important role in either uplifting or burdening all of us.

Like a boomerang, the energy you send out (positive or negative) tends to draw to it more of its kind and then return to you. The same is true for each one of us, and our almost constant decisions to use energy in positive or negative ways dramatically affect our individual and collective well-being.

When we use energy positively in kindness, creativity, laughter, or self-discipline, for example, we benefit physically, mentally, and spiritually. When we use energy negatively in fear, anger, or striking out at one another, we reap tension and pain. Once again, our actions not only affect us personally, they also influence those around us and our entire world.

Think about it this way: Imagine that with every negative thought, word, and action, you also send into the world a little gray cloud. Similarly, with each positive use of energy, imagine that you send forth a little pink heart. It works this way for each of us, and when there are too many gray clouds and not enough pink hearts, all kinds of troubles crop up in our families, our communities, and our world. On the positive side, as we each take responsibility for increasing our loving thoughts and actions, the massive accumulation of little pink hearts, or positive energy, can literally help to transform our relationships and our world.

Now if you think all this talk about energy and gray clouds and pink hearts is just pie in the sky, think again. In recent decades respected frontier scientists from numerous countries have amassed a growing body of factual findings that strongly suggest we do indeed live in a common energy field, and that we are more powerful and interconnected than we previously realized. In her book, The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe, investigative journalist Lynne McTaggart has summarized a portion of this groundbreaking and sometimes controversial evidence.

In order to make the best choices in life, it is essential that we become keenly aware and regularly decide to use our energy in positive ways according to the dictates of our inner guidance. Perhaps the most important choice we can make in our daily lives is repeatedly to opt for love instead of fear. Religions and philosophies the world over tell us that love can triumph over fear; and more and more, science is backing up those age-old claims.

What kind of energy do you project into the world? It really is a choice that we can make, and by learning to engage skillfully in the battle between positive and negative forces, you more frequently make wise choices, thus growing in strength, wisdom, and happiness. So again and again, make the decision to be positive and to add happy energy and sparkle to the lives of others. It could make far more difference than you think!







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