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.
be11a1oma 