Patric J. Dufficy: Dealers in Hope

It’s been a while since I wrote something.
I guess I’m the kind of person who is motivated to write when things are fine, but when black clouds appear and storms pass one after another, the motivation goes down the drain.
Some will be prone to write all their bad stuff; we see it every day all over the Internet. People like to complain about anything and everything.
Is it better to let out the negative instead of keeping it all inside? I don’t think so. Spreading negativity all over the place only feeds other bad thoughts.
I think the best course of action is to redirect the energy we would normally use to complain and redirect it to analyze why in the first place, we are in this dark place and how can I get out of there.

So now you should have a hint why I had not written anything for almost five months.
Yes, I was in a rut, a really deep hole.
I fell into such a negative mode; everything was so black it was consuming any glimpse of light.
I have to deal with some people in my business, and they were doing things I wasn’t considering as correct and it drove me crazy.
At a point, I was so focused on the bad things, it brought me to the point of completely hating them. It made me sick just to think I had to be in the same room for a meeting.

I passed by a hair to quit a great business because I DECIDED to focus only on the negative things.

There is good and bad in everything and everyone around us, only we, can choose to prioritize on the positive or the negative.
Of course, the negative thinking is like weeds… they naturally grow everywhere. We have to clean the garden on a regular basis, or it will soon become invaded by that unwanted stuff.

It sounds so obvious and logical, “Of course, there are negative things everywhere! – I know I have to think positive; it’s basic! – everybody knows that! – Bla bla bla!!”
However, nearly everybody let the weeds spread freely.

I have been caught in this so deep; my garden was virtually destroyed by weeds.

And again, it’s a choice, and it was MY CHOICE to see only the negative in people and situations, and because it was my choice, I was correct and they were wrong.
Are you beginning to see what kind of poison this can turn into?
I wasn’t aware that my thinking was wrong; at the contrary, I was right, and I didn’t understand why nobody could see what I was seeing.
This was driving me even angrier. A real vicious cycle.

The solution to this is a strong will to change, almost like give up smoking or gambling.

In my case, it was something more abstract. I cannot explain it myself, but in late October 2012 at a business trip, something special happened. I will not explain the details here, maybe another time. What is important is that it has awakened me and from that moment, I’ve made the decision to control my thoughts.

Another special challenge:
This thing took place about two months ago.
My wife and I were searching for a piece of land near a lake to build ourselves a new home. Smaller than the one we own right now because we have made some bad decisions over the past and one of them was to build a house too big and expensive for us.
I found a nice lot near a lake, but it wasn’t directly on the lake; it was around 500 feet from it. The lot is cheap, but it is near the main road. The house could be built 200 feet away from the road, but it would still be noisy.

My dream to live near the water is so strong, I was ready to endure the negative things, but my wife was secretly not enthusiastic at all about this plan.

One evening, a woman came to see us for some insurance renewal and we talked about where she lives and about our lake project. She told us about a nice lake we didn’t know about.
This was strange, we were regularly checking for house or lot for sale around this place she told us about, but we never noticed it.
After that, I’ve almost forgot about it until a couple of days later when my wife asked me to check if there was some houses for sale around that lake the insurance lady told us about.
I typed the name of the lake on Google and the first result was a house for sale.
We looked at the pictures with our mouths wide open and automatically fell in love. We read the description and we fell even more in love.
Everything was almost perfect however the price was a bit higher than the price we were ready to pay.

The couple bought the house three years ago and they have made some light changes but nothing really expensive.
Both are doctors with three or four houses across Quebec and Florida, the lady admitted her husband likes real estate.
When we met with her husband and gave him our offer, he literally answered that his price is not negotiable and that it was a deal for a house like that.
My heart just cracked open right there!!!

I had visualized myself in that house for two weeks. I was sure to the deepest point of my soul that house was there for us. In my mind, it was done; it was ours, and it was our destiny to be in that house.

I however, did not lose my mind like I would have done in the past.
I force myself to think this is happening for a reason.
Maybe we will find a better house. Maybe we just have to wait and practice some long term gratification. Maybe it is too soon, because we have a lot of things to take care of before we can move out. We have to get rid of a lot of things we don’t need any more, and we need to get some real estate guys estimate how much we can ask for our present house.
Bottom line is, I could have fallen into another depression after this, but I didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I was and still am very disappointed but what can I do really?
There’s no science behind this, I can go ahead and pay what the seller asks, and I’ll have the house, but that would make me cheat on myself and trashed my financial goals. I can search for a better deal or I can just wait and see if he lowers his price.
Getting mad or whining will not help me to have this house.

I really think I came back stronger from my dark journey.
Every time we fall down, there is something to learn, and we should get up tougher than before.

It’s not easy, there is always struggle, but that’s just life, right?
I honestly think that if we keep fighting for what’s good, good things will happen!
It sounds cliché, but it isn’t. We must fight negativity at all cost because it’s a cancer.
And no, the fight never stops until we die, but living for excellence is worth the fight.

I remember reading an note which said that an entire mass of water the size of the Pacific Ocean can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. In the same way, all the negativity in the world can’t bring you down unless you allow it to get inside your head.
People who are able to discern the positive points in negative situations are the ones who prosper in the long run.

Thanks for reading, God Bless,
Patric J. Dufficy

1 person likes this post.

Like

Unlike