Step 2: The Abolishment of Negativity

If it makes you happy
It can't be that bad
If it makes you happy
Then why the hell are you so sad?
Sheryl Crow

Well Sheryl, I may just have the answer for you… most people simply aren’t in touch with what really makes them happy. They are filled with very vague ideas of what they want, but haven’t really thought about why they want those things, or what their ultimate objectives really are. This is why you see people having affairs, or marriages, that they regret. And it’s the breeding ground for the mid-life crisis moment of, “What was the real purpose of making money and building this life for myself anyway? This isn’t satisfying…” Everyone knows that any important decision or goal should be thought through, but few people know how to think through these things properly. Or, such as in the case of an affair, they know what they are doing isn’t a good idea, but they do not have a deep enough understanding of what makes them happy- they are not in touch with themselves enough- to actually avoid it.

(Editors note: I apologize in advance for the self-help tone here. It’s rough, somehow I just couldn’t avoid it.)

Fortunately, getting in touch with your desires and what makes you happy isn’t actually that difficult if you go about it the right way. If you take the time to reflect and think about what actions and thought processes make you feel positive emotions (satisfaction, happiness) and what actions and thought processes make you feel negative emotion (dissatisfaction, apathy, guilt, anger), the path to happiness becomes clearer and clearer.

Good deeds, positive emotion, treating others well, pursuing hobbies and goals- these things make us happy. They add to our lives in many powerfully rewarding ways. Studies even show that people with these traits live longer.

Deception, negativity, treating others poorly, watching mindless television for four hours straight- these things cause distress and bad feelings. They detract significantly from our enjoyment of life, and our potential. Why would you want that?

It’s important to realize that negative people aren’t somehow inherently more in touch with reality- this usually being their justification for their attitude. Granted, some people are positive and good more out of ignorance and simple-mindedness than that they have a well-thought-out life-philosophy, but that fact alone by no means implies that it is more reasonable to be negative. I, in fact, think that it is more reasonable to be positive.

To take a quick step ahead- when you are feeling sad or negative it is actually more difficult to think clearly because your body/brain is working to combat the negative emotion (i.e. that familiar headache you develop). This is further proved by studies that show that negativity weakens the immune system. Negativity, I have come to believe (and will probably eventually try to convince you) is essentially a weakness, and little more. It results in health concerns and inhibits personal growth. As a species, we have needed it because it helps in our survival by considering possible threats, but we make the mistake of using it in our everyday lives where there are no real threats (social situations, wondering how others feel about us, how we perceive our personal potential). And whatever threats are there in these less critical situations can be, I believe, fully overcome with a positive attitude. Or, at least, a neutral attitude and sound logic.

The benefits of negativity- seeing potential problems so you can avoid them, staying grounded in reality- can actually all be addressed pretty well with logic and education alone. For example, if your dream is to become a screenwriter, the attitude of “Ah I’ll never make it anyway and would just end up poor and depressed,” isn’t really getting you anywhere, and is in and of itself actually depressing. Honestly, I think there are people out there who wish they could have been screenwriters, but had that thought, left it at that and just went the cubicle route instead. Whereas a person looking at the situation without a slant towards negativity (or positivity for that matter), using reason and risk/reward analysis, will consider the same threats, probably won’t leave feeling as depressed, and also keeps open the possibility that maybe they can achieve that dream. For example: “Alright, trying to become a screenwriter is a very risky, volatile career. Can I afford to not have steady income for a few years? Are there people who will support me? …Will I be able to survive, and later on change career paths if I can tell it’s really not working out? Is screenwriting even really something I feel I need to do, and am really capable of success at? Perhaps I’d be better off trying to become a producer, then work my way into screenwriting later. Or perhaps another, more stable field like publishing, which also involves creativity, makes more sense for me. But first, I should really take a good look at what it takes to be a screenwriter…” The point is, no matter what you end up deciding, if you’ve really thought it through as best you can you won’t have that mid-life crisis moment where you wonder if maybe you should’ve taken a shot at your dream before it was too late. You won’t be filled with regret, because your mind was clear all along as to what choices were good for you, and which wouldn’t be worth it. Negativity doesn’t allow for that. A negative mindset is lacking mental clarity, because it shoots the issue down before it’s been fully examined, and given a shot at every angle.

Negative people may think they are realists, but they aren’t actually seeing things clearly. They aren’t seeing the full reality of how, if done properly, things can and often will turn out great.

The truth is, I've spent much of my life on the side of negativity and pessimism. These days, I think it’s pretty clear that I’m an optimist. But it’s important to recognize that I didn’t decide to become an optimist, and then developed these views. It was simply that as I grew up, tried new things, met different people, gained perspective and a capacity for understanding, and educated myself on relevant topics, I started to see everything more clearly. For me, optimism actually goes hand-in-hand with realism.


… I was going to keep rambling, but it’s getting late and I said I’d have a post up tonight, so I’ll do that another time.