There is one thing in my mind that I want to share today, and it’s got nothing to do with digital. It’s got to do with happiness, so I thought it might be worth sharing it because finding unhappy or angry people is as easy as just looking around me on the train to work. People complaining about their lives and their jobs and the world. A positive state of mind is not something you teach or learn, but maybe I can share some ideas to help someone else find their own way.
This is what’s going on with me: I’ve been positive about myself and my surroundings for as long as a decade or so; an uninteresting part of my journey, and while it’s the most important thing for me, it is absolutely irrelevant for you right now. In the last year, though, I lost this extreme positivity, for several reasons of which I am/was partly aware but, again, are not important to anyone else (I mean, any who might read this). In time I’ll learn more things about that period, which makes it an important part of my path. But here I’d like to focus on the period extending since, until today.
I’m having to do something I never considered before: learning to getting used to happiness.
After this negative period I needed to re-learn to just take the happiness that is being thrown in my general direction. I receive praises for my job, which I had lost the habit to. I am like “mmm I don’t trust them”, “there’s got to be something wrong”, “I should do better, why am I not better at this”. While this type of approach is necessary to constantly improve myself, I know I should use it as positive input in the pursuit of the good, and not to torment myself. Why not just think “yeah I’m good at this, I’m doing a good job and people like me”?
Why am I trying to voluntarily find something wrong with what I do, even though those around me are being absolutely nice and are not, in fact, deceiving me (and after all, why would they?). This, I reckon, I do as a spontaneous reflex due to not being used to receive praise for a job well done, have some free time for myself to write on my little blog or do whatever it is that I like, et cetera. Not receiving any positive recognition at all will lead you to think that you are doing nothing good, eventually. It takes some getting used to, accepting both one’s negatives, and one’s positives. I know I’ve got to accept and embrace both.
I always say that I like my flaws. This is only part of the whole thing though: I like and (try to) accept my flaws, as well as my strengths. Balance between the two is all that matters, really. For the same principle, one should nurture one’s strengths at all times: and of this I am certain, all humans have got amazing and unique strengths, and are capable of wonders.
So all in all what I want to say is: accept the positivity that’s thrown your way, for it is always there to take.
Soundtrack: Visions by Haken
