Seek and ye shall find.

Seek and ye shall find.

That old chestnut. It’s as true today as it was when they started saying it. Interestingly though, it isn’t always in the way we expect. So many of us seek to find walls and barriers.

I encountered a girl recently, she must be about 17, who was determined to find the negative or the impossibility in everything. I was astounded by the force in which she wielded this conviction. She has probably gotten so used to this automatic response that she isn’t even conscious she’s doing it. I suggested solutions, which she shot down, not aggressively but decidedly. She had been given an assignment in which she had to find a research article relating to a topic of her own choosing and she said there was nothing to be found. Having much experience in research myself, I set upon proving that it was indeed possible to find articles on practically everything using the magnificent Google. I found dozens of articles that pertained to what she wanted and instead of handing them over I gave her keywords to use in her search. She came back to me with a few articles, one of which she had been able to connect with immediately. This was just a tiny pebble thrown at her belief system walls but hopefully it made a tiny chip. Now many of

you will think, well she’s a teenager, that’s just the age. However I think that, that is the first mistake we make. She is a teenager, and I remember what that’s like, but she is also a college student and about to embark on her life as an independent adult.

So many adults dissolve into the concept of defeat before anything has even happened, and they have no idea that, that is their own belief systems working against them because we aren’t prepared against ourselves. Our ‘natural’ tendency towards pessimism in our teens isn’t addressed so we enter adulthood none the wiser. The amount of energy it must take in order to think of reasons why something won’t work must be extraordinary! The truth is that sometimes things won’t work, but they definitely never will work if we don’t try.

If we resign ourselves to doom and gloom and continue to act as though the world is happening to us. We have to be open to the possibilities of life, because they are vast and plentiful. The first step is becoming aware of what our negative belief systems are. These belief systems can develop, morph, but most importantly, they can be vanquished at any point in our lives. Belief systems are just how we internalize experiences. So if someone like the girl above, can see enough times, that through her own actions and thoughts, solutions can be found then eventually she will be able to abolish her belief that everything is impossible. Because it really isn’t. She, like all of us, is capable of anything we put our minds to, no matter the belief systems!

Seek all that is glorious and wondrous in the world, rather than the depressing, and CONQUER your life.