The Power of Positive…Nevermind

A few weeks ago, I posted a couple of great posts about rainbows and unicorns and buckets of glitter. Well, not exactly, but it was damn near close. In my last post, I talked about maintaining this aura of positivity, you know, changing my outlook on life and whatnot. I discussed not taking things so personally, about pausing before reacting, all of that good stuff. And you know what I learned? Changing bad habits is just NOT THAT EASY. I’ve had a few setbacks, mostly due to my impending move. As much as you want life and situations to go smoothly, it doesn’t always happen that way.

Being positive is so much more than verbally vomiting motivational quotes and tweeting something “inspirational” (I’m a notorious twitter philosopher – hashtags and all). It isn’t smiling when all you feel like doing is crying, and it sure as hell isn’t fronting like everything’s peachy-keen when your world is slowly falling down behind you. No, it’s more about how you deal when the shit hits the fan. I’ve spoken about how we shouldn’t be impulsive reactors, but that doesn’t mean you don’t react at all. On the contrary, it’s having the right reaction that counts.

It’s easy to be angry when things don’t go your way, and curse the person or persons who screwed it up for you, but guess what won’t happen? Yup, you guessed right…it’s not going to change a darn thing. The only thing that will result is that you end up feeling worse, you end up more depressed. Stop letting other people’s actions control your feelings. I’m reading this book David Banner recommended I read (he told me personally…no he didn’t, but let me have my dreams), The Writings of Frances Scovel Shinn, and this is some tough stuff. She’s all about sending out positive energy to reap positive results, and I’m all about that baby. She also has a great quote, which pretty sums up my own internal struggles: “You can control any situation if you first control yourself”.

So, this isn’t to say that I failed my little 21-day change experiment; on the contrary, I think I did pretty damn well with it. But changes like this shouldn’t just be for 21-days…it’s a lifestyle. Stop falling back into your old bad habits, and keep moving forward, even when it seems impossible. Don’t pretend that everything’s all good, but stop believing that everything’s all bad. Start looking at negative situations a little differently – find that spark of hope to hold on to. Because once you have a spark, you’ve given yourself the means to start a fire.