The Power Of Positive Thinking

College-level on-going teacher education is referred to as “flex” credit, requiring that teachers attend outside-the-classroom workshops and activities--about nine hours per semester for part-timers like me. We used to be able to complete “individual activity contracts” which gave us flex time for things we were already doing if they met certain requirements. Since most part-time instructors work multiple jobs, this was a useful program giving us credit for things we were already doing, like community theater performances and volunteering at Special Olympics. But so many people took the contract route that no one was attending the actual seminars anymore--which was hard on the egos of presenters--and we no longer have that option. It’s workshop attendance or nothing. So, I reluctantly go to workshops that have little to do with my actual life--like “The Happiness Project,” where I got to listen to a “laughter yoga” enthusiast wearing Crocs tell how she doesn’t get information from any news source because it disrupts her “priming ritual” for a day’s worth of sheer, manic joy. Good grief. But then a young, bearded guy, who declared everything “Epic!” started to speak. And what he said was interesting. Less than a year earlier he had been stabbed fifteen times by an intruder and lived to tell about it--a miracle he chocks up to positive thinking. Hmmmm. In Louise Fatio’s The Happy Lion, the main guy figures out he already has everything he needs to love his life. I suppose “Epic!” guy would say I do, too.

http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Lion-Louise-Fatio/dp/0375827595

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Fatio