Did I miss something here? Is today National Positivity Day or something? Since late this morning, a Facebook friend of mine has posted the three following statuses:
"Energy flows where attention goes!! Stop wasting all your energy on how much hate there is in the world and let's focus on the positive!"
"What you focus on is your reality. If you focus on all the hate or problems in the world, then hate and problems become your world! Try focusing on positive things, like love and respect! It's the law of attraction! You attract more of what you focus your attention on!"
"I will always teach my babies to find the good in every person and situation!"
Hmm... In knowing this person's history of Facebook statuses, I must say something smells fishy here, and no, I'm not cooking anything right now.
Now, I have absolutely no problem with someone trying to change their line of perception and for the better. However, when such sentiments are stated in rapid succession like that, it can get to be a bit too much, and appears to me at least, as a person overcompensating for something.
If someone were to ask me, "Craig, would you rather be around someone who was always cheerful and positive or someone who was always depressed and negative," I'd surely choose the former over the latter. However, let's be realistic for a moment here - who in their right mind is always positive or always negative? It is definitely a typically more enjoyable experience to be around a person who is generally perky than one who is full of doom and gloom. However, I also like to surround myself with realists to keep myself grounded some.
Going back to this person's quotes specifically, while I think her heart is in the right place, her thinking is not. First off, she appears to love absolutes like I love free trips to Hawaii. Yes, I love absolutes like I love getting sprayed in the face by a skunk just before meeting a girlfriend's parents.
"I will always teach my babies to find the good in every person and situation!"
What, like the Holocaust? Rape? Hate crimes? Abuse? Terrorism? Dick Cheney? Let's be realistic here for a moment...
"Energy flows where attention goes!! Stop wasting all your energy on how much hate there is in the world and let's focus on the positive!"
and
"What you focus on is your reality. If you focus on all the hate or problems in the world, then hate and problems become your world! Try focusing on positive things, like love and respect! It's the law of attraction! You attract more of what you focus your attention on!"
If we don't focus on the negative, how can we then attempt to make that negative a positive? If an uncle of ours is addicted to Meth, but is a nice guy, are we to just focus on the fact he's a nice guy and ignore his awful Meth habit? Wouldn't it be potentially more positive long-term if we focused on the negative that is his drug addiction, got him help, and attempted to better the lives of him and those around him? It might be easier to focus on a positive trait of a person living in poverty, yet that doesn't offset the fact that poverty exists, and to ignore these negatives like poverty is to ignore reality. To me, ignoring reality isn't a positive; it's denial. Denying negatives in this world just to make ourselves feel better, while those less fortunate than us suffer, isn't positive in my mind. It's negative. Positive would be helping those people in need. Negative would be ignoring them altogether.
"Energy flows where attention goes!! Stop wasting all your energy on how much hate there is in the world and let's focus on the positive!"
"What you focus on is your reality. If you focus on all the hate or problems in the world, then hate and problems become your world! Try focusing on positive things, like love and respect! It's the law of attraction! You attract more of what you focus your attention on!"
"I will always teach my babies to find the good in every person and situation!"
Hmm... In knowing this person's history of Facebook statuses, I must say something smells fishy here, and no, I'm not cooking anything right now.
Now, I have absolutely no problem with someone trying to change their line of perception and for the better. However, when such sentiments are stated in rapid succession like that, it can get to be a bit too much, and appears to me at least, as a person overcompensating for something.
If someone were to ask me, "Craig, would you rather be around someone who was always cheerful and positive or someone who was always depressed and negative," I'd surely choose the former over the latter. However, let's be realistic for a moment here - who in their right mind is always positive or always negative? It is definitely a typically more enjoyable experience to be around a person who is generally perky than one who is full of doom and gloom. However, I also like to surround myself with realists to keep myself grounded some.
Going back to this person's quotes specifically, while I think her heart is in the right place, her thinking is not. First off, she appears to love absolutes like I love free trips to Hawaii. Yes, I love absolutes like I love getting sprayed in the face by a skunk just before meeting a girlfriend's parents.
"I will always teach my babies to find the good in every person and situation!"
What, like the Holocaust? Rape? Hate crimes? Abuse? Terrorism? Dick Cheney? Let's be realistic here for a moment...
"Energy flows where attention goes!! Stop wasting all your energy on how much hate there is in the world and let's focus on the positive!"
and
"What you focus on is your reality. If you focus on all the hate or problems in the world, then hate and problems become your world! Try focusing on positive things, like love and respect! It's the law of attraction! You attract more of what you focus your attention on!"
If we don't focus on the negative, how can we then attempt to make that negative a positive? If an uncle of ours is addicted to Meth, but is a nice guy, are we to just focus on the fact he's a nice guy and ignore his awful Meth habit? Wouldn't it be potentially more positive long-term if we focused on the negative that is his drug addiction, got him help, and attempted to better the lives of him and those around him? It might be easier to focus on a positive trait of a person living in poverty, yet that doesn't offset the fact that poverty exists, and to ignore these negatives like poverty is to ignore reality. To me, ignoring reality isn't a positive; it's denial. Denying negatives in this world just to make ourselves feel better, while those less fortunate than us suffer, isn't positive in my mind. It's negative. Positive would be helping those people in need. Negative would be ignoring them altogether.
Loved the piece. I tend to lean negative on occasion. When a friend takes exception to a negative (realistic) comment I've made, I wonder how soft and snuggly their little world feels. Playing devil's advocate is hard work, but somebody's got to do it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, amen. It's also amazing how much better prepared one is for a particular task if he/she has contemplated about all the potential positives and negatives. If a person just thinks they're going to accomplish this task without any problems whatsoever, they'll likely receive a rude wake-up call at some point and be more apt to panic, lose sight of the task at hand, and not accomplish it. If they ponder about both sides of the equation, however, if/when they're greeted with a negative, they'll be less prone to panicking, will therefore be more prone to keeping their cool if that does occur, and with that, be able to accomplish the task.
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