Wednesday, May 28, 2014

The Negative of Positive




Want to hear the most trite, terrible advice ever offered: "Stay Positive."

A broken leg: Stay Positive
A broken marriage: Stay Positive
Death of a family member: Stay Positive
Death of a pet: Stay Positive

This phrase has become a conversational place holder where emotions should go. But they can't go there, because we don't allow ourselves to feel our emotions because we're so focused on "Staying Positive." Our focus on positive thinking has become a socially acceptable form of denial, on par with shopping too much or being frosty, posh and British. How does something that on first look is awesome, like positivity (or being frosty and British), go so horribly wrong?

According to the Mayo Clinic website, positive thinking can help you live longer, reduce instances of cardiovascular disease and even give you greater resistance to colds. All good things right? According to positive-thinking-self-help pop gurus positive thinking can get you a BMW.  That's way better than just staving off a cold. So which form of positivity do you think most people choose? The gentle, if materially unprofitable, form of positivity posited by the Mayo Clinic, or the intense, materially super profitable form shown by books like "The Secret." Spoiler alert: Capitalism takes the day.

In this intense positivity, everything that is seen as 'negative' or 'drama' is fast cut out, avoided and shunned. When faced with an event that is seen as negative but can't be avoided, then the muffling headphones of 'positivity' are used. The ugly event is still there, but an effort is made to muffle its noise and forget its presence. Gratitude journals are taken out, sights are taken in, yoga classes are scheduled, a rigorous monitoring of our thoughts is undertaken, all of this and still the damn unavoidable negative event lives in our thoughts.

We're hounded by sadness and listlessness. Unkind comments fly off our lips before we were even cognizant that those thoughts owned real estate in our heads. Everything is drab. We're surrounded by idiots. Life isn't fair.

This is good.

This is life.

Life isn't fair. We are surrounded by idiots. Life rarely appears in primary-colored saturations. If you deny this, if you try to convince yourself that this is 'drama' or 'negativity' then you aren't really living life. You have brainwashed yourself right out of being human. You drank the kool aid, friend.

What I think of as a healthy positivity isn't avoidance or dismissal. It's acceptance that yeah, life is straight up shitty a lot of the time. Cars break down, rent checks bounce, the Democrats/Republicans have a real chance of taking the White House/Congress this year, or next year or whenever. If you can deal with the shitty truth of that without trying to spin it in a more palatable way and still think the world is pretty rad, dogs are awesome, bees are cool or your mom has a great laugh, then I think you have achieved real positive thinking.

On that note, you're all idiots and I love you.













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