On Being Positive

Things are going to get better, I promise you. Right now I know it doesn’t seem like there is a way out, and it feels like you just can’t take it anymore. But I am clearing a path for you, I am making a way for you. Don’t let your frustration get the best of you. Trust that what you’re going through right now is part of a bigger plan.

“It’s all good.” How I used to hate this phrase. Are you kidding me?! It – life – is most certainly not all good. Things happen that seem totally unfair – your heart gets broken, people you love get sick, others die too young, you lose your job, you lose your life savings, you lose your will to live. The list can go on and on, and it’s not hard to believe sometimes that the almighty Universe is conspiring against you rather than for you.

While life can be incredibly beautiful, it can also be unbelievably hard, heartbreakingly so. And sometimes it feels like that hardship goes on forever, one trial after another, with no end in sight. I know no one ever promised life would be easy. But does it really have to be this difficult? Possibly not. Because although we may not be able to choose what’s happening to us, we absolutely can choose how we respond to it.

I’ve come to realize that I’m probably my own worst enemy when it comes to this. I’m ashamed to admit how easy it is for me to take a trip to the “dark side”; in fact, I think my brain, my thoughts naturally gravitate there, obsessed with predicting what’s to come, catastrophizing everything along the way. And when I say everything, I mean everything. I have a natural proclivity to cling to the bad and filter out the good – I assume the worst and rarely consider that the best could actually be true, might actually happen.

So maybe it’s not the Universe conspiring against me. Maybe it’s ME, unwittingly, conspiring against myself. Like everyone else, my experiences in life have shaped who I believe I am and how I believe myself to be, for better or worse. Did you notice that I said I had a “natural proclivity” to cling to the bad? Is that really true? Am I innately pessimistic, was I made to see the glass as half empty, or is this something I’ve unknowingly imparted on myself?

When I really think about it, I find it hard to believe that this is how I was created, that this is how a loving God wants us to be – focused on the negative rather than the positive in the world, in others, in ourselves. What possible good could come of it, this manufactured unease, unrest, and perpetual dissatisfaction? None. But this is what can happen when we stray away, when we don’t make time, hold space for the wisdom of the Universe, for that voice of God that exists in us all. The voice filled with kindness, compassion and optimism. That which is natural, which is innate in each of us.