Blog Dis
Salt the rim of positivity...
2026-06-23
Life isn't meant to be easy. Life, by design, is supposed to thwart your genius plans for grandiose success. Life is about finding the strength within yourself to keep going when all odds appear to be conspiring against you. This is life's primary purpose, to throw in front of you every conceivable curve, to block your progress. Life expects you to roll up your sleeves, and get to work on sorting out the good from the bad and not to place this expectation at life's feet, that life owes you an easy living and that life is here to ensure your entire existence shall be a smooth ride.
Life's job is to be a bitch.
Your job is to cultivate an attitude that benefits you in navigating your way through life.
I'm a firm believer in positive thinking. An experience in one instance I had illustrated this fact to me, simply. I had gone for an aesthetic service (shan't be specific) and during the treatment, the practitioner complained for two solid hours about problems. This individual was so negative in all aspects of their thinking, that by the time I left, a gargantuan headache ripped across my eyes and pounded in my head. I also knew at that moment that I'd never return to endure this individual, ever again. At one point, I attempted to suggest that some positive thinking could be beneficial in helping to cope with their problems. No sooner had these words left my lips, I realized my mistake, and I was immediately confronted with more waves of negativity along with an emphatic and angry assurance by the individual that they 'tried' to think positive, only for everything to turn out like shit regardless. "I see," I acknowledged softly, hoping to calm them down, "I believe that you're mistaken on the understanding of what positive thinking really means," I offered. This comment was received like a barrel going over Niagara Falls. I can still hear that rush of powerful water. 😂
No one possesses the power to alter the future chain of events or circumstances that affect us directly, if in fact events appear to be spiraling out of our control. Thinking positive as a means to ensure that everything will come your way won't work, any more than thinking positive will change the course if things begin to go downhill. Life doesn't work this way.
The cutting edge of positive thinking is best applied when everything has already gone wrong, and you feel like sticking your head in the toilet. This is when your focus should work toward recognizing the positive aspects of your situation to minimize your anxiety. In other words, positive thinking doesn't change things around you, it changes you personally, internally and with a little hope outwardly too, if and when you're interacting with others, rather than to leave them drenched in a pool of your rage. Because when you allow negative events to rent a room in your head, and you subsequently fall into the sinkhole of bitching about these unhappy events, you merely increase the focus of your negativity and make the problems worse.
Seems simple enough, right? Allow me to repeat my wee pearl of truth: positive thinking changes you and how you regard your situation, thereby making it less arduous.
There are ways to cheat, as there are always ways to skim off the top. You can manipulate the chemicals in your brain to bring about greater states of happiness, which some people are convinced are also forms of positive thinking. I think these notions are a hoot, though I must confess I've tried several myself. The positive vibes are temporary of course, and it also depends on the substance, knowing that nothing exists in a static state. Everything is in a state of flux, like emotions, yet people achieve positivity of sorts through the active consumption of copious amounts of alcohol to numb the pain (when in fact alcohol is a depressant) or anti-depressants, weed, food, and a host of other chemicals inducements. Sex is perhaps one of the healthier options because achieving an orgasm is an ideal method to release endorphins in your brain to make you feel relaxed and peaceful. Safe sex is a good thing, and potentially more preferable. Myself, I think you know where I'm headed now. I will typically reach for a wedge of dark chocolate as my instant fix.
I'm fortunate to have a calm temperament on the whole. I know this temperament is self-perpetuating. And yet, I will still lose my shit, on rare occasions, and if the conditions are ripe, and I'm being overly pushed. As I like to regard this state of mindfulness, imagine a large empty garbage bag. Over a period of time, a long protracted period of time, some persons with whom I deal will begin to fill up this bag, with their acts of selfishness, stupidity or their duplicitous behavior. Once they've filled up my bag, I tie it off and it's never opened again. Ever. It means I no longer can adopt a positive attitude toward them, to excuse their behavior, and I move on, never to put myself in a position where I have to deal with them again. The bag is full. The bag is tied off.
You may call me harsh, yet this too is a form of positive thinking, to cut out the rot in your life, rather than to endure the toxicity. We refer to this attitude now as a form of self-care, to which I agree. It's a positive view.
Genuine positivity is contagious. Similarly, negativity is infectious. I've seen the results. When I spend time in the company of someone who is nothing but pure negativity, I want to avoid this person in future. It feels like their negativity reaches out with invisible hands to push me down. Whereas, a positive spirit is someone who surrounds themselves with an aura of calm and contentment then becomes the by-product. It is this wisdom of living that will benefit you and your friends in the long run.
As goes the adage, those people who believe they're inherently lucky are the ones who luck seems to find. Same applies when it comes to cultivating a positive attitude. You'll be able to face life's hurdles because you've already created a habit of resting back into your comfort zone, which is to say you'll try to see the positive, the gift hidden on the inside of your problem, rather than to focus on the negative. I can't always immediately see the hope in every situation, or to be able to focus solely on the best qualities of a person, especially and right after they've demonstrated to me illogical or selfish behavior, though I make it a habit to focus on their good side, until they prove me wrong. When this occurs, then I have a tendency to file this odd behavior away, to be brought out the next time I have dealings with them. This too is a positive method rooted in protection of self.
Here's a good example of positive thinking. When I had traveled in India, our tour leader (New Zealand) was able to travel the globe for years, before realizing that he needed to knuckle-down, to work toward building some financial capital. Prior to this realization, he traveled on the cheap, as much as possible. He told us about the horrible experience he had the first day he arrived in Russia. Walking outside in downtown Mosco, in broad daylight, he was mugged by three men, in the dead of winter. They not only relieved him of all his money, passport and every electronic gadget he brought but they also forced him to strip, to steal all his clothes, while temperatures were below freezing. He did so, not having been given an option to do otherwise. So here he was standing outside in the street in the middle of winter in Moscow in his underwear, and he broke down crying. A woman saw what had happened to him, and she offered to help, to give him shelter in her apartment. Within the hour of coming into her apartment, she started to ply him with vodka, straight up, while also having provided him with clothing. After he'd became thoroughly drunk, and warmed up from the alcohol, he explained to her what he had lost and how incredulous it was for thieves to leave him naked outside in winter. How was he to survive? How was he to travel in Russia with no money or a passport?
"Not a problem", she assured him. "My father was a senior official in the KGB. Let me make some calls." At the time, he was still panicked and skeptical, though he desperately wanted to believe that she could help, while she continued to ply him with more vodka. He passed out later that evening. In the morning, a man visited her apartment and his passport, clothing and belongings were all returned.
The moral of the story is the worst possible scenario had turned into an positive scenario, and he and the woman became friends. He stayed with her during his visit, and she showed him around the city of Moscow. And the rest is history, as they say. I can't honestly state if his drunkenness played a role in his positivity, but passing out was a positive move because he was no longer panicked! HaHaHa!
Mmm....I'm feeling mighty positive this morning. I may not have slept the best last night but at least my brain is going to generate more positive vibes as every hour passes. And coincidentally, it doesn't hurt either that a bar of dark chocolate is waiting for me in the wings of the refrigerator as I type these very words.
Happy day to you, all the day long! And, may you be able to view your problems through the bottom of a shot-glass without necessarily having to imbibe one drop. Positivity is a state of mind, after all, rather than a percentage of alcohol. [hey, that rhymes] 🥂
Life's job is to be a bitch.
Your job is to cultivate an attitude that benefits you in navigating your way through life.
I'm a firm believer in positive thinking. An experience in one instance I had illustrated this fact to me, simply. I had gone for an aesthetic service (shan't be specific) and during the treatment, the practitioner complained for two solid hours about problems. This individual was so negative in all aspects of their thinking, that by the time I left, a gargantuan headache ripped across my eyes and pounded in my head. I also knew at that moment that I'd never return to endure this individual, ever again. At one point, I attempted to suggest that some positive thinking could be beneficial in helping to cope with their problems. No sooner had these words left my lips, I realized my mistake, and I was immediately confronted with more waves of negativity along with an emphatic and angry assurance by the individual that they 'tried' to think positive, only for everything to turn out like shit regardless. "I see," I acknowledged softly, hoping to calm them down, "I believe that you're mistaken on the understanding of what positive thinking really means," I offered. This comment was received like a barrel going over Niagara Falls. I can still hear that rush of powerful water. 😂
No one possesses the power to alter the future chain of events or circumstances that affect us directly, if in fact events appear to be spiraling out of our control. Thinking positive as a means to ensure that everything will come your way won't work, any more than thinking positive will change the course if things begin to go downhill. Life doesn't work this way.
The cutting edge of positive thinking is best applied when everything has already gone wrong, and you feel like sticking your head in the toilet. This is when your focus should work toward recognizing the positive aspects of your situation to minimize your anxiety. In other words, positive thinking doesn't change things around you, it changes you personally, internally and with a little hope outwardly too, if and when you're interacting with others, rather than to leave them drenched in a pool of your rage. Because when you allow negative events to rent a room in your head, and you subsequently fall into the sinkhole of bitching about these unhappy events, you merely increase the focus of your negativity and make the problems worse.
Seems simple enough, right? Allow me to repeat my wee pearl of truth: positive thinking changes you and how you regard your situation, thereby making it less arduous.
There are ways to cheat, as there are always ways to skim off the top. You can manipulate the chemicals in your brain to bring about greater states of happiness, which some people are convinced are also forms of positive thinking. I think these notions are a hoot, though I must confess I've tried several myself. The positive vibes are temporary of course, and it also depends on the substance, knowing that nothing exists in a static state. Everything is in a state of flux, like emotions, yet people achieve positivity of sorts through the active consumption of copious amounts of alcohol to numb the pain (when in fact alcohol is a depressant) or anti-depressants, weed, food, and a host of other chemicals inducements. Sex is perhaps one of the healthier options because achieving an orgasm is an ideal method to release endorphins in your brain to make you feel relaxed and peaceful. Safe sex is a good thing, and potentially more preferable. Myself, I think you know where I'm headed now. I will typically reach for a wedge of dark chocolate as my instant fix.
I'm fortunate to have a calm temperament on the whole. I know this temperament is self-perpetuating. And yet, I will still lose my shit, on rare occasions, and if the conditions are ripe, and I'm being overly pushed. As I like to regard this state of mindfulness, imagine a large empty garbage bag. Over a period of time, a long protracted period of time, some persons with whom I deal will begin to fill up this bag, with their acts of selfishness, stupidity or their duplicitous behavior. Once they've filled up my bag, I tie it off and it's never opened again. Ever. It means I no longer can adopt a positive attitude toward them, to excuse their behavior, and I move on, never to put myself in a position where I have to deal with them again. The bag is full. The bag is tied off.
You may call me harsh, yet this too is a form of positive thinking, to cut out the rot in your life, rather than to endure the toxicity. We refer to this attitude now as a form of self-care, to which I agree. It's a positive view.
Genuine positivity is contagious. Similarly, negativity is infectious. I've seen the results. When I spend time in the company of someone who is nothing but pure negativity, I want to avoid this person in future. It feels like their negativity reaches out with invisible hands to push me down. Whereas, a positive spirit is someone who surrounds themselves with an aura of calm and contentment then becomes the by-product. It is this wisdom of living that will benefit you and your friends in the long run.
As goes the adage, those people who believe they're inherently lucky are the ones who luck seems to find. Same applies when it comes to cultivating a positive attitude. You'll be able to face life's hurdles because you've already created a habit of resting back into your comfort zone, which is to say you'll try to see the positive, the gift hidden on the inside of your problem, rather than to focus on the negative. I can't always immediately see the hope in every situation, or to be able to focus solely on the best qualities of a person, especially and right after they've demonstrated to me illogical or selfish behavior, though I make it a habit to focus on their good side, until they prove me wrong. When this occurs, then I have a tendency to file this odd behavior away, to be brought out the next time I have dealings with them. This too is a positive method rooted in protection of self.
Here's a good example of positive thinking. When I had traveled in India, our tour leader (New Zealand) was able to travel the globe for years, before realizing that he needed to knuckle-down, to work toward building some financial capital. Prior to this realization, he traveled on the cheap, as much as possible. He told us about the horrible experience he had the first day he arrived in Russia. Walking outside in downtown Mosco, in broad daylight, he was mugged by three men, in the dead of winter. They not only relieved him of all his money, passport and every electronic gadget he brought but they also forced him to strip, to steal all his clothes, while temperatures were below freezing. He did so, not having been given an option to do otherwise. So here he was standing outside in the street in the middle of winter in Moscow in his underwear, and he broke down crying. A woman saw what had happened to him, and she offered to help, to give him shelter in her apartment. Within the hour of coming into her apartment, she started to ply him with vodka, straight up, while also having provided him with clothing. After he'd became thoroughly drunk, and warmed up from the alcohol, he explained to her what he had lost and how incredulous it was for thieves to leave him naked outside in winter. How was he to survive? How was he to travel in Russia with no money or a passport?
"Not a problem", she assured him. "My father was a senior official in the KGB. Let me make some calls." At the time, he was still panicked and skeptical, though he desperately wanted to believe that she could help, while she continued to ply him with more vodka. He passed out later that evening. In the morning, a man visited her apartment and his passport, clothing and belongings were all returned.
The moral of the story is the worst possible scenario had turned into an positive scenario, and he and the woman became friends. He stayed with her during his visit, and she showed him around the city of Moscow. And the rest is history, as they say. I can't honestly state if his drunkenness played a role in his positivity, but passing out was a positive move because he was no longer panicked! HaHaHa!
Mmm....I'm feeling mighty positive this morning. I may not have slept the best last night but at least my brain is going to generate more positive vibes as every hour passes. And coincidentally, it doesn't hurt either that a bar of dark chocolate is waiting for me in the wings of the refrigerator as I type these very words.
Happy day to you, all the day long! And, may you be able to view your problems through the bottom of a shot-glass without necessarily having to imbibe one drop. Positivity is a state of mind, after all, rather than a percentage of alcohol. [hey, that rhymes] 🥂
