Dear Judy, we remain Positive by being realistic. 🙂 Yes, this seems counter-intuitive. But, it’s a matter of having an actual real appropriate perspective that takes everything into account.
We need to be fair to the World. Let’s take the matter before the Courts of Conscience. Here, in our innermost being, where we have to be utterly honest and accurate, where we have to be scrupulously fair, where we have to balance everything and take all of what’s involved into account, here we can come to a determination about our continued Positivity.
First item: Relative Amounts
When you say “So much negativity” what do you mean exactly? Assuming you mean quantity, we have to enquire if this also applies to percentage. Understanding and being aware of the difference helps us gain Appropriate Perspective. A million Dollars is a lot of money. But, as a percentage of the world’s money, it’s a small fraction. Just so with negativity. It may be a lot relative to nothing, but it’s a tiny amount relative to all the Positivity that exists.
Second item: Attention and Appreciation
What do we notice? What are you noticing? We notice what stands out, what catches our Attention, we are drawn to the dramatic, the impactful. The negative stands out typically because it’s different, unusual, not actually because it is common.
Let’s look closely at what surrounds us. If I look around me, I have my house. Starting here, I look at everything. Is there anything negative in my space, about my surroundings, happening in my house? If we exclude people, in general most homes are positive in themselves. It’s positive that we have a bed, blankets, we have clothes, we have a bathroom, kitchen, food and so on. Simple things yes, but all Positive.
Nothing about the facts of the existence of our house stands out. It’s not dramatic, sensational, and thus we tend to overlook that simple Positivity. Same as we tend to overlook the simple positivity of nature, of life in general. That Positivity is just there. Not dramatic, not sensational, but still there. If we pay more Attention, we connect to the all of life, not just that which stands out. By doing this we connect to Appreciation, which we can use to Leverage our Perspective, allowing us to perceive Positivity and negativity in Appropriate proportion.
Third Item: Proportion
Make a list, an actual list, of everything surrounding you that’s Positive. Add absolutely everything you are happy to have in your life, that you are thankful for, that you enjoy, like, and which in some way adds to your life, no matter how small. Start with your immediate surroundings and expand outward. Keep going until you run out of energy. It will be a long long long list.
There’s an incredible amount of Positivity in the world. We simply have to notice it, pay Attention to it all. That’s the key to remaining Positive. Not to ignore or disregard the negativity, but to place it in Appropriate proportion to the Positive. We have to notice what’s not particularly noticeable. We have to let go of focusing only on what stands out, what’s dramatic. We have to realise it stands out because it is the exception, not the rule. We overlook Positivity because it isn’t “newsworthy” or doesn’t connect to our fears. We can’t let those dominate our Perspective. We have to learn to see ALL of Life. And life itself is Positive. Things as a whole get better, despite temporary appearances to the contrary.
Item Four: Trust
We need also to Trust in Trust. Here I mean Capital T Trust. That Trust which is a power. A Trust that Transcends us, a Trust which connects us to the best of ourselves, a Trust which Leverages the Goodness of the world. We thus have to Trust in Goodness itself. We have to Trust that despite noticeable exceptions, the vast majority of human beings are good, are Positive, and wish to improve the world and all that’s in it.
When we actually look around, look at all the people actively working to make the World a better place, making constant efforts to deal with the problems those exceptions create, or just improve because this is a good thing to do, we have much to base our Trust on.
We remain Positive by paying Attention to all the Goodness, by noticing all the Goodness, by keeping the Goodness and Positivity of the world as a whole, of Life in general, in the Forefront of our Awareness. We stay Positive by Leveraging our Perspective, by keeping matters in appropriate proportion, and by Choosing-to-Believe in the Goodness, creativity, ingenuity, and overall intent of people and the World to continually move in in a Positive direction, and to not allow negativity to dominate.
It doesn’t really, it only seems so. We just have to make the effort to remember all the Positivity. And really, if we look at the negativity in terms of learning and Awareness, it’s good for motivation, good for showing us what we need to deal with, what needs to change, what we need to work on. So even the negativity is Positive in those ways.
We remain Positive by insisting on Positivity and Appreciation. In this way we develop Unrelenting Positivity.
Biella
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About the Columnist
A Contemporary Philosopher and Writer, who exercises a glorious intellectual mind that is most admirable for its profundity and sharpness. Often offering multiple sides of an argument, and provoking self-introspection. Their aim is to uncover Appropriateness, Awareness, Attention, Application, Attunement, and more, with a unique, high-level understanding of the profound intricacies that interlace these concepts.
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