Thinking Positive: You're Doing it Wrong

It’s hard to avoid the positivity movement these days: from memes to webinars to life coaches/gurus, the concept that the happier you are, the better your life will be, seems so common place it’s almost glib. Whether it’s Oprah’s Live Your Best Life, Tony Robbins Fire Walk, or the plethora of other motivational speakers there are to choose from, an entire breed of celebrity have arisen that continue to attract new adherents to the movement. Implementing it in your life typically revolves around removing unconscious blocks and ridding yourself of limiting beliefs in order to reach your highest potential. As your inner life is prioritized, your external actions begin to reflect that change. I honestly can’t fault that concept explicitly, it seems to hold a lot of wisdom that bears fruit, even under scientific scrutiny. Study after study has shown that positive people enjoy better relationships, higher self-esteem, generally better health due to lower levels of stress, and are even likely to have greater achievements as they are not as risk averse as negative thinkers.

It makes sense that this type of movement would have so much traction; not only does it make promises of a better life where your only problem will be handling your massive success, but in this dark and scary time, most of us are thinking that there must be a better way than how we've been handling this whole 'life' business. I'm a firm believer that love conquers all. Fighting fire with fire only works if you’re certain that you’re the one with the most fire, and even then you’re dealing within the realm of dominance and aggression – not the best tactic when you’re striving for resolution of any kind. While nothing and no one can ever guarantee results %100 of the time, it seems the pursuit of positivity is a noble quest; trouble is, most of us are doing it wrong.

The issue seems to be that positivity is too often equated with happiness, and the pursuit of happiness is almost guaranteed to end in misery. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be happy; who doesn’t want to be happy? But happiness as a state of being, is too vague a concept, lacking distinctive parameters. It alludes to a positive feeling but doesn’t define it, mainly for the fact that what makes someone happy is unique to each person. What makes you happy? Fulfilment? Success? A sense of purpose? Intimacy? Glowing health? The road to all of these things are diverse and too often filled with unhappy moments; and if you have to feel happy about everything you do before you can just get on with it, you’re never going to get anywhere. Most worthwhile things take effort and effort is not always pleasant. You can take a positive step in the direction of a worthy goal that you don’t like doing. It may be boring, anxiety inducing, difficult… none of those feelings sound very happy, and yet the choice is still a positive one.

Another issue in equating positivity with happiness is that in this highly materialistic society, our positivity can quickly become an external show, hoping that if we just proclaim our positivity loudly enough it will be true. "Fake it 'til you make it" becomes a sad term indeed, when what you're trying to fake is fucking happiness. For years it killed me, sitting outside the audition room waiting for my turn, and listening to everyone who went in before me, greeting the casting director with a thirty inch smile and enthusiastic chatter. It was too often so… exuberant, so… joyful, so…. needy. Obviously you should be kind and friendly going into an audition room – it’s a fucking job interview, after all. But do you really need to be so over-the-top happy in there? Is that the golden ticket? Something about it always stunk to me, but for the first few years starting out I mimicked my peers, thinking it was what I had to do to be memorable. Then one day I thought ‘fuck it. That’s not me. I’m friendly and professional, but I’m not bubbly and bright-eyed. I’ll leave that to someone else. I’ma do me.” And I did. And you know what happened? I suddenly felt much more at ease in the audition room. And you know what happens when you’re more at ease in the audition room? The people in there are at ease with you. And you know what happens when their at ease with you? You’ll probably book more. Unless you’re a terrible actor. Then you should be walking into an acting class, not an audition room. But I learned that, by trying less to come across as happy, I got more positive results which was what I actually wanted anyway, and in turn it made me feel kinda…happy.

Being positive all the time can also be, how can I put this? Fucking annoying. Not that I don’t feel joy at your joy; if you’re truly pleased about something then I’m right there with you. But if you’re putting it on, you more often than not come across as a dick. Let me share two examples of such dickery:

One was years ago at an industry event. I was chatting with an actor I know, when one of his acquaintances came up and introduced himself. Without much ado he launched right into “so how’s work going?” and as it was winter and there was not really much going on at all, I said “you know, could be better.” Without even a moments reflection he stated emphatically “actually I don’t know. Work is always great for me.” Awkward pause. “You don’t ever have a period in the year where work could be going better?” I asked. “No, I started working as soon as I graduated and just work more and more all the time, I have no idea what you mean,” he said, breathlessly. An even longer awkward pause as I waited for him to smile and deliver the punch line. It didn’t come. He was a genuine dick and literally had no clue, because he was so positive about it. Our mutual friend laughed and started rambling to alleviate the bizarre and unnecessary tension that had so suddenly arisen. Life lesson: when you’re positive to the point of being oblivious or insensitive, you’re just as annoying as the person who’s constantly complaining.

Another disastrous interaction with a highly positive type was much more recent, on a film set. Between takes I started chatting to one of the stunt guys. He was new to the job and super enthusiastic, which was cool, and he started telling me about how he had turned his life around and the different lifestyle coaches he was into. I love conversations on personal improvement and we talked pleasantly for about twenty minutes, until we hit a philosophical point on which we saw things differently. I can hardly remember what the point was, but I do know that the conversation degenerated into a sales pitch about the formula I should adopt in order to live my best life, right down to my diet. When I tried to explain what I have found to work for me, as I was still under the delusion that we were having a conversation, I suddenly found myself in a debate with someone whose views on positivity were as dogmatic as an evangelical preacher's views on salvation. Seeing that the conversation had no where else to go, I began searching for my moment to exit it, but he held on tight, certain that if he could just convince me of his own rightness my entire life would change for the better like his had. At one point he said “my goal is that every single person I meet likes me and is inspired by me” and I stood there thinking “I already hate you, and I literally hate no one.”

Both of these guys well meaning efforts to be positive were working out in a negative way for them because their ideology was making them tone deaf to the individual situation/human being in front of them. Guaranteed, guys like that tell themselves “haters gonna hate” at least a dozen times a day to pump themselves back up after yet another failed interaction with a complex individual who hasn’t yet reduced their life down to a formula. If you layer 'positive' over the fact that you're a dick, that doesn't increase your appeal, it only means that now you're a disingenuous dick.

It seems then, that positivity is more effectively thought of and understood when we think of it in terms of values and not feelings: Values to work hard even when it sucks, to honour each individual we encounter even if they think differently for us, to develop a sensitivity to people’s hidden struggles; values that put the inner workings of our relationships above the image we project about them; values that make us confident to say “I’ma do me” no matter what anyone else is doing; making choices based in values that honour both the individual and the collective is the only true positive movement anywhere. They may not always be the easiest choices or make you happy in the moment, but they are the surest road to a sense of fulfillment. There is also no formula for positive values. What is important to me may not be so important to you. Recognition and acceptance of different life choices is way, way up there on the list of positive values. Try it today.

So is having a healthy range of emotion and being able to talk it through when things suck, without getting utterly lost to despair. We understand the importance of such concepts as biodiversity and cultural diversity, but did you know there’s also something called emotional diversity? Your feelings aren’t obstacles, they convey important information to you about things in your life that need addressing. Only wanting to be happy is akin to only wanting to eat corn from Monsanto; it’s not good for you or for anyone. So ditch the pursuit of happiness and align yourself with the values that truly matter to you. Then when things inevitably get tough, you can smile knowing that you are still headed in the right direction.