Optimistic Thinking Ends Drought

By Norman Vincent Peale, New York, New York

As appeared in

When I receive a call for counseling, the people who seek my help usually have some clear-cut reason for their unhappiness: marital difficulties, broken relationships, emotional problems, financial worries. All very specific, very real.

But there are also some whose complaints are harder to pin down. These people are beset by nameless fears and anxieties. They feel isolated and inadequate. The life-force in them has grown dim. They know they are living far below their potential, but they don't know why. There is something parched and arid about them, like plants deprived of water. And indeed this is their trouble: They are living in a spiritual drought.

These people remind me of a story from sailing-ship days about a vessel becalmed off the coast of South America. Week after week went by; the wind did not blow; the ship could not move. The sailors were dying of thirst when another schooner drifted close enough to read their frantic signals for help. Back came the answer: "Let down your buckets!" When they did, they found water fit to drink beneath their keel. Far from the coast though they were, the freshwater current from the mighty Amazon River surrounded them. All they had to do was reach for it.

I like that story, because I have spent my life trying to persuade people that the love of God surrounds them at all times, and the way to "let down their buckets" into this limitless reservoir is to apply the insights and principles set forth so clearly in the Bible.

There is nothing obscure or complicated about this message. It tells us that God designed us to live joyous, productive, successful lives. To achieve such lives, he knew we would need his help, and he promised that this flow of power would be available to all who would follow the instructions He set down very plainly. You can choose to accept that blueprint for living. You can choose to ignore it. The choice you make has everything to do with the transmission of that power.

Anyone who observes people closely knows that certain attitudes and certain actions are destructive. Fear, hatred, anger, self-doubt, cruelty, dishonesty, selfishness, promiscuity. These negative forces can reduce the flow of power to a trickle, or in some cases shut it off altogether.

So when spiritually enervated people come to me, I try to offer some suggestions designed to unblock the flow of power in their lives. Here are four of those suggestions .

1. Have a heart-to-heart talk with your conscience.
A remarkable thing, the human conscience. Some people claim they have none, but this is not true. God built a sense of right and wrong into us whether we admit it or not. A wise Frenchwoman, Madame de Stall, once wrote, "The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it, but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it."

It has been my observation that one of the most common causes of depression, spiritual anemia and alienation from God is a repressed sense of guilt festering in the unconscious mind. Being human, we all make mistakes. And often, being human, we try to sweep them under the rug. But this is just asking for trouble, because the penalty is a feeling of unworthiness, a loss of self-esteem, a decline of confidence. Countless unhappy people go through life dragging these chains when what they need to do is face up to the transgression, acknowledge it, make amends, ask God's forgiveness, then forgive themselves.

Your conscience will tell you when you need to do that, if you will just listen to it. Give it a chance!