Bad Case of False Positivism

I sat with my parents and listened to the downfall of the family. We were diving deep into challenging times. It was so bad, you couldn't see the end of it.

I would always travel, work, or study in remote locations. The struggle they were going through felt so foreign until I came back to visit them.

My stomach was turning upside down while listening to my mother sharing the most gruesome things she had to witness in the past few months. The thing that struck me the most was her saying.

Don’t worry, we just have to think positive and everything will end up just fine. It always does.

This got me the most. It doesn't get better if you just stay positive. When the situation is not great, why would you pretend to feel fine?

Who invented this nonsense? Think positive and all of your problems will go away, eventually.

Create a shell of false positive thoughts. Pretend you don’t really see what is happening. So many people become so good at this. You always have to be positive they say. There is no other way.

Life is not always good. It is not always bad either. We live a chaotic bubble full of twist and turns. A collected mess of all the nasty, slimy and fantastic. That is who we are, an utter chaos. There is no one side to it.

When something bad strikes us, there is no point in running away from it. Deflecting pain can lead us only to more pain down the road.

I always felt that being honest to yourself was the best policy. Search within and without what feels right. Don’t deflect. Live through it. I’m not present in that distant “positive future”. My life is happening right now. I’m here. And, if it’s not good, let’s do something more than wonder about better times.

Most of the adults need a tragic push to change their life around. If you think everything is going to be fine, there is just not enough of a drive to make a significant change. Why would you? Everything will end up being wonderful. Just wait and it will come. You just have to harbor the tough times.

Tough times are the most important of times. Those are the opportunities to shatter your own illusions about the world and yourself. We all have them, wanted or not, they are present within us. Most of the times, illusions are there to protect us from feeling bad or to make us feel bad. Either way, they are not real. Others can see that we live in our own world on some counts. As we can see others and think: “this guy lives in his own world.”

It is not real. When something bad happens you might think: “Well, maybe I should change something”.

If your spouse leaves you, you might realize: “Maybe I’m not the best husband ever. How am I treating people around me?”

As we live through bad times, we come to enjoy good ones even more. We can choose to come out of them as a bigger, stronger, well-rounded person.

Sitting down and hoping the storm is going to pass and the sun is going to shine just as bright as before is hollow at best. Storm doesn’t care about what we think or feel like. It is there. A real disaster. Our house is leaking. We have the power to change something so the next time we wouldn’t have to worry about the same issue.

Sitting down and asking yourself: “Why does this always happens to me?” —Won’t solve anything either. It may just create an emotional burst of dissatisfaction with everything else.

If the same problem keeps happening over and over again, it is not others who made the mess, it is YOU who let it happen. Own up to your mess. See it through.

Sometimes, there are things we can’t control. You can’t control traffic. The past will always be there. The future has not yet happened. Other people can think whatever they want. Change itself is outside our reach, it’s omnipresent. People change.

How we treat these issues is equally important. Where we shift our focus is what will matter.

Sitting stuck in traffic and cursing the whole world won’t help much. Although, I have to admit, If you ever experienced Los Angels traffic, it feels damn good to yell out of your lungs when you get stuck. But yelling won’t solve your problem.

You should focus on the things you can change. You are in control of your beliefs, your attitude or how much risk you take.

If you take significant risk, be prepared to not always win. Own up to it and learn to manage the same risk until it works better.

The only constant in life is change.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. — Ecclesiastes 3:1–8, Bible

If you live through every time and find it’s lesson, you will live a life filled with purpose.