Have you ever noticed that when you pay attention to the negative things that are happening in your life, we sometimes give those things more power than they should have over us?  I was thinking about this not too long ago and felt like I needed to remind myself and others that we should not give so much power to those things that attempt to take away our personal joy.  There is a multitude of things that already do a good enough job of this, so why add more imbalance to this equation.  If you hear the news the majority of the stories at the beginning and pretty much through the rest of the newscast is filled with all of the things that are not right with the world.  Some even have a pattern of scare tactics, like when they first tell you that drinking coffee is bad for you.  Then a couple of weeks later, coffee is good for you.  The few good stories that seem to have a heart warming message are buried in the newscast or at the very end.  I made a concerted effort a long time ago to listen to or read news stories that I chose and took away the broadcasters or publishers level of importance.  When we focus on things that are negative, it is like taking a ride on a downward spiral without a return ticket back.  Let us all do a better job of filtering those counteractive things.  Remember that by giving power to adversity, it becomes more difficult to give power to the positive things that bring fruitfulness and abundance to us.