Possibility thinking for the unemployed, the adversity victims and thedisabled - A Point Of Awareness

(Part III of a series on Tough times never last but tough people do)

How often do adults tell a small child "Don't touch that jar! Don't climb the window ... Don't carry that box, there's a small box ..." If only mother uses less expensive decor she need not frustrate the "young explorer." A little boy quickly shoves a stool by the window to watch the parade but the well-meaning aunt holds him up killing the joyful ascent of the "mountain climber." The bigger the box (even if it is empty) the happier the child is.

Thus from the beginning of life, when human energy is most active, all good possibilities to acquire independence is crushed out by the all-knowing and self-righteous adults. Consequently the child's ideas and good will are stunted. What is worse is that the child is not able to believe in life's numerous possibilities since his confidence is eroded. Fortunately not all adults disrespect children.

Possibility thinking

In essence, possibility thinking is the management of ideas. Management is the control of a resource in order to minimize waste and maximize the development of latent possibilities. Ten thousand ideas flow through the average mind daily. A vast majority of the ideas are negative. Possibility thinking is therefore the disciplined separation of negative thoughts from positive thoughts. Positive thoughts are those that hold undeveloped potential for good.

Impossibility thinkers are people who instinctively react negatively to a possibility-laden idea. They impulsively look for reasons why it can't be done. They quickly abort an idea and forget about it. The possibility thinker looks at every idea to see if it has possibilities. If it does, he takes an option out of the idea. He does not let it slip by.

The most dynamic of my aunts is Nena Mobley. Known for her sewing and cooking she kept busy taking particular job orders. She divorced my uncle Salo during the Japanese time. After the war, she married an elderly Pentagon man. She went with him to America and got herself employed.

Mama Nena was laid off work during the 1982 US economic recession. When I visited her in Charlottesville where her American husband retired as an invalid, she enthusiastically showed me her hobby-craft projects. She said, "Precious when I was laid off work, I thought myself lucky. Otherwise I would not have guts enough to quit my job and start a business of my own. I then asked God if I have a talent, please help me turn it into a business."

Both Mama Nena and her friends were getting tired of making crafts and giving them away. So they finally decided to start a gift shop with things on consignment. After all she has an empty room by the garage. They began by organizing their friends and soon they had 50 names of people they knew who made crafts. They had a garage sale and what didn't sell, the Goodwill got. They got $600 for stuff they thought was really junk. They thought, "If people will come out in the country for a garage sale, they should come for handmade things."

`God is my No. 1 Partner'

In the first month they had over 600 people and had gross sales of $2,533.22. But before they formally began their business they had a long talk with God. Mama Nena says "He is our Number One Partner."

They now have 94 people with lovely handmade things in their place. As she looks back she can't remember any negative thoughts about this. They just felt like it had to be God's idea. They could not have done all this as fast as they have without Him. Mama Nena never underestimates the value of an idea. She and her friends were able to manage properly every positive idea.

John Prunty was known throughout his community as "the roadrunner man." Last June 6, 1973, John took his usual 21-minute run, not knowing it would be his last. John along with the rest of the five-member construction crew, scrambled onto the roof of a small home. He was atop a scaffold when his foreman called him for a tool. In reaching for it, John stepped forward, and instantly a cinder block gave way under his weight. He fought the impulse to jump. But it was too late. He was already airborne and out of control from his momentum.

His flight ended with terrible finality. His 160 pounds landed with full force upon his head. John says, "I still shudder when I recall the grinding sound of crunching vertebrae. My body's trajectory, coupled with momentum, tried to force my forehead against my chest in pretzel-like fashion. Instantly I was aware I had lost feelings in my leg. The pain was so severe. I felt as if my head were suspended only by a thread. I struggled to stay conscious."

The rescue squad arrived and efficiently went about preparing to place a stretcher beneath him. At the hospital, the neurosurgeon who took his case lifted him onto an X-ray table. A short time later the doctor brought him the unhappy confirmation that his neck was indeed broken. "I had learned to pray as a child, so now once again I turned to God."

Through the pain and confusion of his traumatic, potentially mortal, and life-changing injury, John recalled the words of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt "All we have to fear is fear itself." Following that was a positive reaction -- a rededication and reaffirmation of love. There were prayers of supplication to God, whose master plan undoubtedly was to unfold in the coming days.

John felt as if he were wrapped like a mummy from the chest down. It was frightening because it meant the feeling was gone. During the following week, it became more apparent that the major effects of John's injury would be permanent. He continued to hold out hope though, that a miracle would occur and mend the spinal cord to the extent that it could again process messages.

One day John, a young husband and father, overhearing the nurses realized he was a quadriplegic, a victim of broken neck, paralyzed from the neck down for life!

"I decided my accident was something I could never escape from. It would become a millstone around my neck, or if I practiced possibility thinking, I could turn my millstone into a milestone! I decided to do just that! I have accepted me as I am rather as I wish I were."

Today, John manages his own business, serving surrounding hotels and his community with a professional baby-sitter placement service. He also gives many hours as a volunteer counselor in the NEW HOPE crisis telephone counseling center in the Crystal Cathedral.

Last January 8, 2000 was supposed to be election day for the homeowners of the North Greenhills Association, Inc. (NGA) in San Juan. But many residents of this exclusive village have instead boycotted what they condemned as a "rigged" election. The elections were denounced by the reform faction who has lost confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the alleged "Commission on Elections (Comelec)." For the following reasons the reform party preponderantly points to the impossibility of having a fair and honest, credible and effective election:

1) The January 8, 2000 elections is loaded in favor of a group which has been entrenched in power too long with apparent connivance of the NGA COMELEC, a creation of the NGA Board. One COMELEC member although a member of the NGA Board is not even a qualified voter since his parents are already recorded in the "list" of qualified voters.

The possibility management done by the reform party irrevocably withdrew their candidates and resolved to boycott the election. They were not alone. Even five candidates of the present board have voluntarily withdrew. Thus unable to complete this 15-man board the election is completely useless.

2) After the meeting with the national COMELEC Chairman Harriet Demetriou who primarily upholds the ideal election guidelines, defects of the current NGA COMELEC Rules were pointed out. As a result 12 revisions were made to rule out any possibility of cheating by proxy or stuffing the ballot box. To implement these, the reform party and the NGA COMELEC had to meet but the latter kept refusing and ignoring the suggestion of the national COMELEC to agree on the revised term.

Isn't this undemocratic and suspicious? Isn't COMELEC supposed to be a non-partisan and neutral body?

To heed Chairman Demetriou's warning that the validation of specimen signatures should take a longer period of two to three weeks, similar to a corporation election, the reform party asked to extend the election to January 29, 2000 specially since the NGA COMELEC set the deadline for January 3, without opening the NGA Office on December 30 nor December 31, 1999. The NGA COMELEC refused.

3) One reform party candidate, a brilliant lawyer and active in deciphering the flaws of the NGA COMELEC, was arbitrarily disqualified and delisted from the official list of candidates and voters because he did not pay his garbage fees for 1998 (for then San Juan municipality was taking care of it) although he paid the association dues for 1998 and 1999.

The reform party checked the whole day of January 8 through anonymous persons whether the boycott worked. It did. Only the small group of the usual NGA outgoing members were seen. The following day they issued the list of winners -- themselves.

The present NGA Board wants to perpetuate themselves in power at all cost even to the extent of using the COMELEC as a witting or unwitting tool. They have to ensure that the exhorbitant increases in association dues like the 80 percent increase in 1999 should go unabated. They have to try to hide from the members' view the true story of the clubhouse, constructed against the objection of the residents. It has become a big white elephant and a heavy albatross on their collective heads. They have to shield the true condition of finances, precisely the reason why honest to goodness audited financial statements have not been distributed to homeowners. They do not want others to find out the huge deficit it has incurred after using up the previous savings of the association. They would like to shore up the association's deficits by railroading the sale of a portion of Johnson park to the barangay without getting the approval, consent, or concurrence of the members.

Who are the actual survivors in this typical village conflict?

Abangan ang susunod na kabanata. Wait for the final episode.

THE PEOPLE WHO REALLY SUCCEED ARE THE PEOPLE WHO GIVE EXTRA EFFORT AND PUSH THEMSELVES BEYOND THEIR NORMAL LIMITS. THERE IS A PRINCIPLE: "NEW POWERS ARE DISCOVERED EVERY TIME YOU PUSH YOURSELF FARTHER THAN YOU'VE EVER GONE BEFORE." -- Rev. Robert H. Schuller

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