Ever since I was a little kid, there have been two visions of the world competing within me. Whichever one shapes my perceptions depends on how I feel at any given moment. I’ll describe them both in detail, starting with the one I much prefer.
I’ve had a strong sense of optimism from a young age. That optimism can be chased away on occasion but it sticks around through some difficult, trying, and downright weird times and manages to always come back even when it’s been chased away. I consider that optimistic view that says things are going to work out well, everything will be fine, and I’ll be ok in life to have originated from a lot of the movies, TV shows, songs, and books I experienced growing up. I also went to a lot of theme parks, especially Disney theme parks, throughout much of my youth. Places meant for families to have fun together and get a break from the difficulties in life. There, good always triumphs over evil, everyone lives happily ever after, and everything gets wrapped up in a nice neat bow. Occasionally, I’d encounter a story with a lot of bumps on the road to happiness or one that would have the bad guy win instead of having a happy ending, but those were pretty rare for me to find while I was growing up. I experienced a lot of optimism in many forms from a young age and I soaked it all up. Once in a while something in school, at home, or elsewhere in life would challenge that optimism: apparent rudeness, discomfort, or pain (whether arising from me or somebody else). But afterward I’d quickly go back to that positive vision since that negative experience was only a momentary disruption from the peace, optimism, and happiness.
The other vision is pessimistic and negative. It exists in the stories where the bad guy gets away, the good guy doesn’t save the day, and there’s no happy ending. That’s the vision that’s been dominant in me for the better part of a decade now. It’s been around longer than that but it’s taken center stage as I’ve experienced more of the world, seen a lot of the pain that people are dealing with, and experienced the negativity they bring to the table for whatever reason. As a result of all that negativity, the positive vision has gotten a lot more beaten, tattered, and worn down over time while the negative vision has grown stronger from being fed so much. It doesn’t take much for the positive vision to retreat now (even with all the progress I’ve made over the past few years) but it does take a lot for it to come back. All of that plus internalizing a lot of negativity within myself has made the negative vision much more dominant in my own life. Whether in trace amounts or huge amounts, it seems that there’s anxiety, depression, anger, loneliness, fear, pain, and other kinds of negativity almost everywhere I go. This includes my job, home, social gatherings, and even events intended to be entirely fun. I’ve noticed this for years now. It’s real hard for me to keep my spirits up when almost everyone around me has their spirits real low. It’s challenging to swim against the current when the current is unceasing and I’m still learning how to swim.
I can feel even more discouraged when my attempts to change things, improve whatever situation I’m in, introduce more positivity, and help people get out of their negative cycles either don’t succeed to the degree that I want them to or totally fail. Then I start feeling hopeless, as if that vision of things being ok was only ever and will only ever be nothing more than a fantasy. A fantasy that exists only in movies, TV shows, books, songs, theme parks, and me on my best days. It takes a lot for me to pull myself out of those funks. One thing that helps me get back to feeling more like myself is being around people with an optimistic view. They provide a nice break from all the negativity.
That’s what it comes down to for me: spending more time around positive people and less time around negative people. If the most positive person I’m around most days is me and almost everyone else I encounter is super negative, that tends to drag me down. I prefer to spend time around positive folks who seem to see things similarly to me and don’t take existing negativity as a statement of fact about how things have always been, always will be, and are meant to be. I especially like being around the people who have been able to make something out of what they’ve encountered in life by lifting themselves up, lifting others up, and making things better in a real, lasting way. That plus continuing to release negativity, ceasing to pour myself out for people who don’t want my help, and refraining from lowering myself to match someone who’s in a negative state have got me feeling much better as of late. I’m sure I’ll feel even better as I keep working on all of this and continue moving in a more positive direction. I look forward to seeing where that takes me and talking about it in future posts.