How To Be A Successful (insert your occupation here)

In the drudgery of daily life here at Cambridge, when every day you are faced with staggering intellectuals and all-rounders of the highest levels possible, people who have achieved so much in the short time that you've lived on this earth, it's hard sometimes to maintain perspective. So many people here secretly suffer from inferiority complexes, especially when at almost every dissection table sits a nerd with glasses thicker than the sarcasm in House's voice who does nothing but SIT there and rattle out answers to everybody's questions, including the demonstrator's. And these are just the nerds who LOOK like nerds...worse are the geniuses who actually dress well, go out every night, play sports, and STILL kick your butt in the test you stayed up all night studying for. (Not that I'm bitter or anything.)

We all get that feeling sometimes, of inferiority and of the need to live up to other people. And especially here in Cambridge where the best of the best abound, I sometimes forget to keep a positive mental attitude to prevent myself descending into cynicism and envy. So here I publish my favourite post of all time from the Trump blog, where The Donald reveals one of his greatest secrets for success:

Be Positive Every Single Day
by Donald J. Trump

"You have to be positive every single day. You have to put effort into it daily, because no one else is going to do it for you."

Get out of your own static comfort zone by moving forward with momentum and power that positive thinking can give you. Every time a negative thought comes at you, zap it. Replace it with a positive thought. That takes energy, but the result will be stamina - positive stamina, a necessary ingredient for success.

Sometimes you just have to be tough. I use the example of a brick wall. Is there a brick wall in your way? Fine, that happens. But you have a choice. You can walk away from the wall. You can go over the wall. You can go under the wall. You can go around the wall. You can also obliterate the wall. In other words, don't let anything get in your way. Get a balance, and then let the positive outdistance the negative. Be positively persistent.

Optimism can be learned, and it can make a huge difference in life. No matter how large and intimidating a challenge might be, facing it with optimism is the thing you can do to manage, shape and eventually triumph over it.

The bottom line: Trash the pessimistic attitude.

In his famous book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, author Robin Sharma states in the chapter on developing a positive mindset:

...the ones who do more than simply exist, the ones fan the flames of their human potential and truly savor the magical dance of life do different things than those whose lives are ordinary. Foremost amongst the things they do is adopt a positive paradigm about their world and all that is in it.

Makes sense, at least to me. I don't wanna walk around this town feeling inferior to all these MENSA members walking around me and wanting to beat them all up, though I'm told by my friends that I'm not the only one feeling sudden violent tendencies when the guy sitting at the front of the class asking questions just WON'T SHUT UP. *takes deep breath...in, ouuuut, in, ouuuut...* Right. Gotta go try this positive attitude thing. Either that or it's back to the violence counsellor...and she gives out those bitter, bitter sweets. *shudder*