Through a recommendation from the secretarial school I was attending at the time, I finally had the opportunity to work as a secretary for a European company. The head of the office was Japanese, and although I had no previous experience as a secretary, I was assigned to work for the person in the highest position in the office. He was extremely demanding and very difficult to work for. Day after day, I was told that I was a poor secretary, and gradually I began to lose confidence in myself.
Within a month or two of joining the company, even the sound of the internal phone ringing when my boss called would make me react with fear. My voice would tremble, and so would my hands. I was almost like “Pavlov’s dog.” I was no longer myself and was on the verge of becoming ill.
This continued for about a year and two months. There was even a time when I wondered whether my boss might be Satan himself. But after praying about it for some time, I came to realize that the real problem was not him, but my own weakness.
If I had never met that boss, I might never have become aware of my pessimistic way of thinking or of my own weakness. One day, feeling almost desperate, I went to a Christian bookstore. I normally do not read how-to books, but for some reason, one particular book caught my eye. It was The Power of Positive Thinking, written by the American pastor Norman Vincent Peale.
Throughout the book, one Bible verse appears repeatedly, almost like a key phrase:
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
I was constantly on edge, afraid of how my boss might react to anything I did. I had developed the habit of expecting the worst, always wondering when I would be criticized again. My negative thinking had become deeply ingrained in my subconscious.
I had become afraid of almost everything I did. I had developed the habit of expecting something bad to happen, always thinking that I might be criticized again. My negative thinking had penetrated deep into my mind, even into my subconscious.
Following the advice in the book, I decided to stop using negative words altogether. Negative words enter through our own ears and are recorded, as it were, on the tape recorder of the subconscious mind. From that point on, I had to begin the work of planting positive words in my subconscious instead.
I consciously chose to use positive and encouraging words. Whenever I worked, I thought of my work as something I was doing together with Jesus. Because the Almighty was with me, I was able to believe that there was nothing I could not do. By myself, I could do nothing, but because the Lord was with me, I no longer needed to worry.
After about six months of living this way, I had become myself again. But I had also gained something more: I had become a positive thinker, and my trust in God had grown to one hundred percent.
When we finally realize that there are things we simply cannot handle by ourselves, we reach the point of surrender. I raised the white flag of surrender to God. Through this experience, I learned to entrust everything to Him and to trust Him completely.
There is something I have become firmly convinced of through observing the people around me. Regardless of whether a person has faith or not, it is ultimately that person’s own state of mind that can make life unhappy. Those who habitually view things negatively and pessimistically tend to live unhappy lives, while those who approach life positively and with hope tend to live happier ones.
------ to be continued -----
にほんブログ村
にほんブログ村
多言語学習ランキング
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