Never Go Numb.

Positivity and happiness are two very different things.

And I have consistently found that the first erodes the second. Relentless positivity actually damages my ability to experience joy.

This is hard to explain to people who ask me how I “stay so positive.” If I answer with a laugh –  “I don’t” – I get  a blank stare or even, occasionally, an argument.

“Yes you do,” the other person might say, as if I’m just being modest. Or “But you’re so happy.”

Somehow people have conflated that bastion of self-help, positive thinking, with happiness. The common thinking goes that positive thinking is the key to happiness.

I’ve found the exact opposite to be true: I entertain the worst possibilities, consider all potential outcomes, especially the worst ones, and I imagine what I’ll do in each potential situation.

Then  fear melts away and leaves serenity, a sense of optimistic preparedness, in its place.

I also allow myself to feel sad. I don’t bury my head in the sand. I don’t numb myself against the fears and pain that comes with a cancer diagnosis. If something bad happens, I acknowledge that it’s bad. I do this because when it comes to emotion, there’s no such thing as a local anaesthetic: if you numb one emotion, you numb them all, and if I ignore my pain I blot out my capacity for joy.

I’m a  joyful person because I let myself feel sad. I’m an optimistic person because I  envision  my worst-case scenarios and deal with each of them in advance. I feel prepared to take on the worst.

So when people ask how I “stay so positive” or how I’m still so happy, I’ll try to convey these two things:
Instead of determinedly ignoring the harshest parts of your situation, imagine them in advance.
Instead of refusing to cry or curse or scream when the fear hits you, let yourself feel it.

I try to be brave enough to imagine the worst, and I never let myself go numb.

On Worry

I worry about the circumference of my thighs. Funny, isn’t it, when I could worry about the upcoming results of a brain scan which might tell me to watch and wait, start chemotherapy, have brain surgery, or die? I will not hear the results until June. That’s a lot of time to worry.

“Worry does not save us from tomorrow’s sorrow; it only robs today of its joys.” There is truth in that, but only to a point: a little worry can make you alert, make you act when you otherwise wouldn’t, and – yes – save you from a little of tomorrow’s sorrow. We worry for a reason. We fear for a reason. Worry and fear serve a purpose. But I cannot change the upcoming results of a brain scan.

And so I worry only about silly things, laughing at myself for it, and enjoy all the moments of my days. If you can, enjoy yours.