Eliminating Life's Parasitic Drag for True Joy

So I have decided recently to get back to being intentional in my pursuit of happiness. One of the ways in which I am doing so is to reduce the parasitic drag in my life. In aviation, parasitic drag is drag not formed from lift. Lift is what gives you the ability to fly. So parasitic drag are forces that interfere with anything moving or flying. In our life, there are many examples of parasitic drag, one being negativity. I eliminated one source of this when 3 weeks ago I got rid of TV and stopped watching the news. Norman Vincent Peal wrote in his book the Power of Positive thinking, “ The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised.” What makes happy people happy is not how much they have or who they are: what determines their happiness is their state of mind. We need to pay attention to our thoughts. If our minds are filled with grudges, hate, selfishness, impurity, and dishonesty, then the clear light of joy cannot filter through. Look, we need to fill our hearts with God’s Word, with His great thoughts about us. We need to search for the good in the people we meet. It is easy to see the bad things, but we need to be intentional in seeing the good in people. Get rid of criticism (my weakness) and negativity. It is so easy to get critical and negative in this world, but we have to push against it. We must ask for forgiveness for all of our errors and replace them with truth from God. Let’s live lives that meditate upon and speak God’s Word. Let’s live a joyful, happy life.“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”Proverbs 17:22 Be Nice, Grace Wins