The Tao of Negative Thinking

NEGATIVE? "If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds," Norman Vincent Peale

TIRED OF POSITIVE THINKING? Why don't we reverse the process and embrace the other side? Without you saying it, going positive all the time is almost always too tall an order. Hard to smile when you're confronted with electric bills, water interruption, problematic WiFi connection and an impending typhoon. Somehow you have to condition yourself that everything will turn out all right in the end. 

The power of positive thinking, to start with, takes it cue not in the idea of conditioning the bright side of life but suppressing the dark side of it. Its existence is dependent on the presence of the other, like it tries to light a candle in the dark because it is afraid. 

The positive and the negative. A flashlight can't light up by relying solely on the positive side, it needs some sort of negativity for it to function well (plain and simple). No matter how many times we condition ourselves to the finer things in life, negatives are as indispensable in our daily grind as with a positive note. And because a lot of us are battering on to the idea of positive thinking in almost every aspect of our lives, hard to imagine at all if we are aware of its bruises. 

First of all, I am not a positive thinker. At least from the perspective of what positive thinking is all about. I could be positive on long stretches, but because I tend to oversimplify a complicated thing, my brand of positive thinking suffers in comparison with what others tend to profess. I guess a bit of inspiration would do for me to display that kind of attitude. Suffice it to say, emphasizing the positives sometimes tend to display a distorted view of yourself.

Although far it be from me to suggest that dwelling on the negatives will not so much affect your personality or your relationships any more than succumbing to the positives, because a negative attitude is always a negative attitude. No more, no less. You can't justify a negative thing by feeling positive about it. That's lunacy, if you ask me. My only gripe about dwelling so much on the positive is that it forces you to deny the truth about the negative things around you. Simply put, you are more or less viewing life like a fantasy, a state of being that could put you, so to speak, in harm's way.

People should be wary, careful even, about professing the positive side of things. There is always a catch attached to that like a witty quote. Not all positives are positives, in the same way that not all negatives are detrimental or unhealthy. And not all positives are free. Sometimes when someone confesses something positive, it is their way of telling you that you have to work for it.

I do believe that you need to exhaust all the negatives around you before you could actually extract something positive from it, that's where the principle of negative thinking takes its cue. Your positives only exist because your negatives allows it. Your negative thoughts can stand on its own because people are by nature critical, but your positive thoughts will suffer some strains without it. 

I remember a story I read from Khalil Gibran a few years back about this eternal battle between good and evil. In it, an idea is in question about these two warring forces, God and you-know-who, the idea that the only reason good or even God exists it's because of the presence of this evil, as represented in the story by, yes, Satan himself. Without this evil or Satan, good is nothing more than a whimper, and that God is a non-functioning entity after all. Like what good it would be for God if there's no evil around? The story was so convincing that at the end you would question your positive agenda about what it meant to be a positive person. 

It's cool to have a positive attitude though. I would definitely recommend it, not that we should exude it at all times, but because we need to set an example somehow.

The problem with it is that its coolness is taking on a different feel, a different shape, and that others use it for some (questionable) reasons, self-serving protestations that doesn't have to do with anything positive at all.

We thought that by displaying a positive flair, a feel-good mentality, everything will take care of itself, everything is in place, and that everybody's cool about it. But to disregard the negativity around you would be to court disaster at every turn, your deliberate contempt about it is nothing short of being fatalistic about what goes on around.

And I find it hard to swallow the whole thing. We even teach our children the art of saying "no" (don't talk to strangers) and all the while encouraging them to think positive. Would that be a bit contradictory? Why don't we just lay all the cards on the table, positive or not, explain to them the pros and cons, and usher them into reacting with a sense of responsibility, instead of showing them how positive life is, when what goes on around them is a complete opposite of what you're trying to impart. Sometimes being negative allows you to become circumspect, enabling you to decide with a better view of the issue, instead of dwelling on a part of it.

Balance is all. And you can only secure that by acknowledging the merits of going negative, if need be. Not that you wallow yourself with a lot of negativity around you, but that you need to question yourself also, and not accept "positive thinking" as if it's the only available commodity around.

It is only when you question yourself that you attract a sense of proportion, especially when you're about to make an important decision. Nobody in their right mind would make a decision, or plan something, with only the positives are its only variables, there has to be some room for improvement somehow in case that decision fails or that plan somehow falters. 

Yes, there is such a thing as the Law of Attraction. It is an extended expression of going positive in life, that if you claim something good in you, you will reap something good in return, like sowing and reaping. But behind the philosophy, behind the networking potential, whether positive-thinkers admit it or not, is the desire not to associate themselves anymore with anything negative in life. Behind that big applause to go positive from now on is that equally big resolve not to go behind the curtain again. You can't go positive without being negative in the first place. That's just the way it is.  

At any given moment, we need to have that negativity within us. For one, it is for our own protection. You can't accept everything in life with a lot of positives head on and expect to click right away, you need to go back home at some point. And by going home means you accept the realities around you as it is. You can go positive for as long as you want, but it's hard not to consider the pollution, the gossip, or even the rain outside your door. You have to deal with it, whether you like it or not. And second, it's almost impossible to live life on a bed of roses. One wonders the idea of sleeping on it without minding the thorns at all. Imagine that.

Make no mistake about it, I don't dwell on the negatives any more than going solo for the positives, in the same way that I don't profess to know anything more than my experiences would allow, because I always thought that believing on the positive side too much is actually giving luck more license to dictate your chances in life than by giving cause and effect a chance to redeem itself.

Negative thinking is not so much a matter of having a negative view of yourself or the things around you, but that you're actually showing a way for that positive outcome to take its course, its tao, by being critical and negative about it.  

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