58/365 Toxic Positivity

By vinodnarayan on August 20, 2021 • ( 0 )

Recently we have heard this phrase called toxic positivity and it is rampant on social media. For those who do not know what toxic positivity is, it is this obsession with positivity…. the concept that every individual should give a positive spin to everything that happens in life.

This sometimes has a toxic effect and people alienate themselves away from the reality and the action needed to change the situation. The problem in my opinion is not thinking positively or being connected with positive people. The issue I have is the sheer dishonesty in some of this positivity gimmicks.

For example thinking that every situation in any individuals life can have a positive spin and one can do that is not just absurd but also a lot of bullshit. People are different and so are their situations and also our individual capability and resilience to face adversities. We all have our personal perspectives.

Say we are going through something really bad and someone comes in and says ‘look at the positive side’ you might agree to it as a friend or you don’t want to seem like that negative person and so you give into that whole dance. Then when you are left alone you are back to that same situation and the other person leaves happy that they have done something great and they smile at their achievement.

Nothing has changed… you are back to square one.. may be with the feeling that why is this happening only to you while the other guy can manage this so well. The interesting part happens when you realize that the other person is just doing all these drama to get out of their life of negativity at times.

Does talking positive help. Yes I think so.. but not by belittling what has happened or downplaying the gravity of an incident. As human beings we are tuned to be sad… to be negative.. to feel bad… to be dejected… to feel hopeless… that is life… that is reality. You cannot make these feelings non existent by jumping up and down and and showing positivity after drowning on 2 energy drinks.

What we need to reality to kick in. If something goes bad, we need support so we can navigate through it… accept it… know it is part of life.. understand that such things don’t happen just to you… know that in reality everyone struggles to get through these… that sometimes these thing can alter a lot of things for us.

Then we slowly start looking at this and with may be the help of others we find out that some of these stuff are not something we have control over. And for those things we have control we figure out what can be changed. All the while not denying ourselves the right to feel bad and dejected and hopeless and negative and all those human emotions that Toxic positive sellers believe should be non existent.

No one wants negativity in life, but they don’t go away by overdosing life with positivity, it makes us difficult to facing reality. So my 2 cents is this.

Understand that positivity and negativity are part of life and reality is having both not just one. If anyone says it is all positive or all negative, my take is have it with a pinch or salt.

I am not always positive… and I prefer to be positive than negative…. but I also give myself the liberty to be on my negativity trip at times. I don’t fight every single emotion I have. Sometimes we realize we have gone too far and sometimes people tell us.