Positive and Negative Energy

Are people forgetting how to laugh things off? Or if not laugh, at least bear the bad things with a little more dignity? I understand being outraged about certain things - cancer, AIDS, abuse, racism, homelessness, alzheimer's.... These are scary beasts that deserve as much rage as the devil himself. Believe me, I'm not talking about these demons or those who are trying to exorcise them. I'm just talking about the tendency of people to let their negative energy run roughshod. This negativity acts like a vampire, sucking the life energy right out of these people and, often, those around them. At the risk of breaking into a Biology refresher: When we eat, our body converts the food into glucose. The glucose acts as our fuel - giving us energy to go about our daily shopping...I mean tasks. Without that energy, we're pretty lifeless. I think of our thoughts as "food" for our minds. Our mind takes these thoughts and converts them to speech or to action. If we eat food that's healthy, and good for our body - our body rewards us with physical fitness. If our thoughts are healthy - our mind will reward us with good mental health. Take, as an example, an older person who lives alone. My sweet mother in law, who has moved to a far better place (as in Heaven, not Hawaii), lived the last few years alone. We could always tell when she and her thoughts had been left alone for too long. It was then that nothing suited her - not the weather, her health, not even her favorite chair. But after talking to someone for a few minutes, she was just fine - her funny, adorable self again. Apparently, her mind would wander and try to get into stuff. Aren't we all guilty of that from time to time, though?! The fact is there are plenty of Energy zappers in life (illness, nagging spouses, domineering parents or bosses, difficult children, annoying co-workers, irritating siblings, bills, hurricanes....), we don't need to add our own attitude to the list. If we get our attitude right and get as much positive energy coursing through our life as possible, we'll stand a better chance of fighting the negativity. Negative doesn't beat negative, it celebrates it. In the end, it compounds it. Positive lets negative know that it hasn't won yet, and that it's in for a fight.