MINDSCAPE
People, nowadays, spend most of their time online. And, as a result, we see a lot of influencers telling everyone to stay positive. Staying positive isn’t a bad thing, except that this trend creates pressure to focus on being positive in a given situation at all costs. The pressure to stay happy - no matter what - is toxic for most people.
Sounds weird, right? How can something like positivity be toxic? Unfortunately, that’s the truth. I was listening to a podcast today and the person used a term ‘toxic positivity’. I instantly paused and goggled the term. When I read articles about it, I realised how I had always felt the pressure to remain positive and had chosen to ignore it. I told myself I was a pessimist by nature and that this was my problem. I have always had trouble with it, but getting to know that it is as real as the sun feels rather good, to say the least. You know the feeling you get when you think that something is wrong but no one agrees with you and suddenly NASA proves it and you’re like yessss! I knew it!
It would be wrong if I say I haven’t experienced it. We find ourselves and almost everyone around us trying to focus on the brighter side of the picture. My mother is the most positive person on the planet. There have been some really tough times in our lives and I have never seen her feeling hopeless.
But, usually when we convince ourselves to just look at the brighter side of the picture, we fail to acknowledge the darker side that is as real as the brighter one. All the darker stuff - which we haven’t dealt with – is relegated to a rack at the back of our mind. And then it gets piled up, and suddenly the rack overflows or breaks. It happens while you have been focusing or trying to focus on the brighter side, and as a result you don’t know how to deal with the darker picture.
You have been living in denial and now the rack that’s been keeping it all away has broken and you don’t know what to do with it. I don’t mean everyone should go around and be a pessimist but what I am trying to say is to at least acknowledge the sad bits, the gloomy skies, the lonely roads and broken people. I remember telling someone about feeling suicidal and was the solution given to me? I was told to focus on the good bits and be thankful for being alive. I had just said I wanted to end my life and was told to be thankful that I hadn’t committed suicide yet? Is this what you call a solution?
Often, people go through great losses and other people tell them to ‘man up’. It can be destructive and it’s called suppressing your feelings and invalidating them. We should face them so that they don’t come around in uglier ways. Stay positive, but acknowledge the negativity around you. That will help you not to become a victim to this newfangled idea of toxic positivity.