Why Being Positive Matters

It is incredibly easy to be negative. Not only does every broadcast, and every daily newspaper, overtly sell negativism — regardless of the issue or the line-up of the sides, it is easier to dump on “the other guys” than it is to figure out what can be done, and how, especially if ratings or circulation are required to make money! — but the principals involved, both politicians and their staff of backroom manipulators, have trouble with talking points that are positive. Being positive takes more effort, runs more risks, and takes more airtime than simply pointing fingers and saying “evil other guy!”. So negative sells up and down the line.

The voice of most bloggers is also resolutely negative. I am not happy to admit it, but most of my published words on this and predecessor blogs has likewise accentuated the negative, not the positive. It is a failing and one to be constantly fought against.

Yet being positive is important. Not only do the many issues of our communities, societies (and even our own personal ones) and countries require proponents to propose action so that we can begin to map out courses of action — the outcome of mere opposition simply maintains the status quo — but relentless negativism in its turn saps our energy. We begin to leave things alone: how much grief can one person stand? So we check out, and leave the future to others.

The trend line is clear: election after election, poll question after poll question, fewer of us care enough to want to take part. We are destroying our society through our abdication of responsibility.

When I talk to my voting-age daughter, who does not vote, has no intention of getting involved, and is positively cheerful about moving away from Canada in part because she will be an immigrant who need not ever become a citizen (and therefore is free of responsibility for the future), her objection to being involved boils down simply to the negativism of it all. “Why bother?”, she asks, “nothing will change; nothing will break through this gridlock”.

We — yes, me, and you, and all the others around us — have made the world into a place for which care is left aside.

I see the pernicious effect of this repeatedly. I have many good friends for whom it simply “is not possible” that a Conservative Government, or our Prime Minister, could ever put forward good options. They do not even lay out what’s better about another option: the entire thrust is negative. (This is similar to being barraged by a complete and exclusive diet of Warren Kinsella’s blog, or a mailbox full of NDP literature — the only message is relentlessly “against”.)

Meanwhile, in BC, the same holds: no matter who complains, or how loudly, about some government policy, the capstone statement is always “against” the opposition and the very conception of them ever being in power, no matter what.

Does this make sense to you? It certainly makes no sense to the young people I’ve talked to. What’s disturbing me about this is that this is translating into “a pox on all of your houses” — no reading of quality articles in the press, no watching or listening to quality broadcasting, no working within the community to make things better (however “better” is defined in the eyes of the person getting involved). Instead, they check out, and the game grinds on (and illegitimi non sed te carborundum may be said, but we are ground down, too).

Meanwhile, take a look around you. Depression and anxiety are on the rise. (So is the popping of prescription pharmaceuticals and casual drugs — alcohol, marijuana, etc. — as forms of relief.) Families become places where people pass in the night but dare not speak out. Tension abounds. In other words, we are making ourselves, our loved ones and our society sick.

There is with this — as with almost everything — one solid answer that each and any one of us can pick up and work with, even when no one else will join in. That is to drop our own negativity, as best we can, and be relentlessly positive.

Being positive is all about putting forward options, recognition of good proposals, working for the future. Being Dr. Pangloss, with relentless optimism in the face of the evidence, is merely the flip side of the negativism. Treating others as worthy of our ideas recognises them as humans like ourselves; treating them to a steady diet of bullshit (whether of the “aren’t they wonderful” or “aren’t they horrid” types) is not.

It is a road of personal healing, emotional fulfilment, societal sustainability. Isn’t that worth the effort to overcome the downgrading experience of our reading, listening, viewing?

I think so. I hope you will too. Even more to the point, I invite you to help me be positive by pointing out when I slip into being negative. We all need to hear this sort of thing, if we are to be healthy and create a society that thrives.

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