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When you label so much of what happens to you as 'bad,' it reinforces the feeling that you are a powerless pawn at the mercy of outside forces over which you have no control. And - this is key - labeling something a bad thing almost guarantees that you'll experience it as such.

No matter what happens to us in life, we tend to think of it as 'good' or 'bad.' And most of us tend to use the 'bad' label three to 10 times as often as the 'good' label. And when we say something is bad, the odds grow overwhelming that we will experience it as such.

I think saying you're bad at something is rather wonderful because then it doesn't matter anymore.

I think you can do something bad, and it doesn't make you a bad person. We are not defined by any one choice. We are the sum of our experiences, and we can make a bad choice and turn around and do better.

Even when bad things happen you have to try to use those bad things in a positive manner and really just take the positive out of it.

I can discern that certain things have an effect on certain other things, but I don't view those effects as good or bad. If a context and a goal is defined, I could say if it's good or bad. But overall, I don't view things as good or bad.

There is just no getting around that turning bad things into good things is up to you.

A lot of people deal with things that are bad. Once you've been through something, you grow from it and you take a lot in. You can always turn it into something positive.

Just because I don't do bad things doesn't mean I don't have bad thoughts.

To be candid, some people have given positive thinking a bad name. I can't stand to hear some gung-ho individual say that with positive thinking you can just do 'anything.' If you think about that one for a moment, you recognize the absurdity of it.