Photo by MARK ADRIANE on Unsplash

How many times a week does somebody tell you to be more positive?

“Everything will be fine. Just be positive.”

Doesn’t this statement just boil your blood? Especially when you just spent 20 minutes telling someone you deeply respect about something that is immensely bothering you. You haven’t been able to sleep at night because of this.

And then all you get is ‘be positive’.

Like, is there a positivity switch that you’ll turn on that will solve all of your problems? 

No. There is none.

Statements like “Positive vibes only” and “stay positive” only make things get harder to understand. How can somebody stay positive all the time when the world is doing everything to bring you down everyday?

I’ve been on this positivity journey for years and now I realise how wrongly positivity is portrayed on instagram or tv. Positive people aren’t stalks of sunflowers glowing bright in the sunlight. They aren’t people seeing the good in everything and magically nothing ever goes wrong for them.

What if I told you that you have been positive all this time?

A positive person realises that things aren’t good and can’t always be perfect

A positive person knows that life is a mix of ups and downs. No positive person in the entire world believes that things will be fine and dandy and lollipops will fall from the sky everyday. So if you do realise that your life’s not perfect and things aren’t going anywhere, that doesn’t mean you’re not positive. You’re trying. That’s positivity, my friend.

A positive person is allowed to vent out.

Positive people are still human beings and they are allowed to tell their friends what they’re feeling. They’re allowed to complain when things aren’t going well. They’re allowed to cry and feel hopeless some days.

However, positive and resilient people do bounce back up. Don’t you also always bounce back up after something goes wrong? Don’t you always keep going with life?

A positive person doesn’t go around trusting people blindly

Positive people learn from their lessons. They don’t trust someone at work if they’ve been irresponsible in the past. They don’t trust a friend with their secrets because they’ve spread other people’s stuff around in the past. 

If you don’t trust people because of what they’ve been doing in the past, that’s not being negative. That’s being cautious.

So can you sit down and ask yourself:

Am I believing that life isn’t perfect? Am I managing still? Am I still showing up for life everyday? Am I not handing my trust around to anybody? Am I being cautious?

And dare I say it,

Am I positive?

If you want to practice positivity more consciously, you can read my article on easy to follow positivity techniques.

Read more from me:

Self-care ideas to calm you

What to do after a breakup to heal pain