Dear Students, Words of Encouragement

Dear Students;
With those who have been overwhelmed by the Step 1 Test last week, the world-famous baseballer Ichiro’s words may strike a chord. “Great adversity is the great chance to enhance your skills significantly if you can rise to the tough challenge. Being in a slump gives you a great chance to find your weaknesses through soul-searching and develop mental discipline.” His philosophy of life that epitomizes “positive thinking” has a lot in common with the guiding principle of ASC, “Let’s enjoy the process!(陽は必ず昇る!)”, by which I do mean that you Can enjoy the process of overcoming serious challenges, no matter how long it may take.
Another aphorism I took from a book on time management is that if you feel negative about your task, your work efficiency and productivity will decline to less than 30 % of your potential. Therefore, you should force yourself to think positive about it if you want to finish your job as quickly as possible. This can also apply to your English skill development. If you feel inferior to your peers in vocabulary building or listening comprehension and thus negative about the test or training, the rate of your progress in those skills will sharply decline. Therefore, you must force yourself to think positive about them to expedite the process of your skill development.
These three aphorisms boil down to the critical importance of “positive thinking” in skill development and thus success in life. In this day and age people can be easily sucked into a “black hole” of negativism and pessimism. People tend to swing from joy to sorrow, seesawing between hope and despair with ego inflation and deflation. Yet as Western and Eastern religion warn that people trapped in defeatist mentalities will be possessed by evil spirits, while positive thinkers can be blessed with high spirits, we must regard tangible progress as a confidence booster and serious setbacks as a blessing in disguise and always try to think positive about even the most daunting challenge. “Dreams see us through to forever. Let’s enjoy the process!”(陽は必ず昇る!)

最近読んだ「イチローの名言集」の中で心を打ったのが、「ピンチは最大のチャンス到来である。
それを乗り越えれば一気にレベルが3倍以上UPする。」、「スランプは自己反省を促し、次の躍進へのステップである。」というものでした。 特に前者は、不況にあえぎネガティブな気分に陥りがちな現代人への名言として心に響くもので、
「窮地は大きければ大きいほど、それを乗り越えた時の飛躍が大きいので、絶対に背を向けずにチャレンジし克服すべし!」という言葉は、人生を達観した一流の人間の発想と言えます。

これこそまさに私のモットーである、”Let’s enjoy the process!(陽は必ず昇る!)”と同じコンセプトです。
調子のいい時に明るく悪い時に暗くなるのは普通の人にとって当たり前のことですが、ややもすればネガティブで
ペシミスティックな気持ちになりがちなこの乱世を生き抜くのに重要なことは、己のポテンシャルを信じて苦境を乗り越えるプロセスを「エンジョイ」して行くという「真のポジティブシンキング」だと思います。目に見える成果もなくスランプのように思えても、それを自己反省と精神力UPのチャンスと捉えて、次なる飛躍に備えるキャラクターこそ、まさしく現代人に不可欠な要素だと信じています。

カテゴリー: 未分類 パーマリンク