Why Just Being Positive Is Bad

Positivity without depth is like a river without water - it looks good from afar, but can't sustain life.

The other day we drove on the highway, and I saw a sign of a town, Stoney Creek. My heart skipped a beat. It reminded me of a long lost friend who I haven't been able to find in over a decade.

Many years ago, I met a very sweet guy who was always positive. Everything was great for him, no matter what life threw his way. But as time passed, I found myself talking to him less and less. It took me a while to realize why - his constant positivity was actually creating negative energy around me. It was suffocating.

Looking back, I can see the pattern clearly now. Whenever I told him a story, it was always good in his eyes. I never really heard an opinion from him. If we ever had a disagreement, he'd never admit it. He lived in this bubble of positivity, trying to avoid anything remotely negative at all costs. After a while, it felt like talking to a robot.

I remember him telling me about his younger years. He used to be a fighter, but all he got was pain. A girl had broken his heart and married someone else. So he'd adopted this philosophy of unconditional love and said he was happy with whatever he got. At the time, I thought it was admirable. But now, looking back, I suspect he wasn't really happy at all. It seemed like he was running away from reality, avoiding his pain instead of facing it. He'd stopped standing up for what he believed was good for him.

One day he just disappeared into thin air and nobody knew where he went.

It's taken me years to understand this, but everybody loves themselves. If you don't stand up for yourself, nobody will do it for you. And you might end up with a miserable life. I wish I could go back and tell him that.

Over the years, I've learned that pain doesn't disappear, it only moves from one place to another. If you try to avoid it now, you'll have to face it again at some point in your life. And it will hurt a lot more if you let it accumulate. Accepting pain and learning from your experiences is part of life. If you're always trying to avoid it, you end up carrying it with you everywhere. It's better to face it and then let it go. I wonder if my friend ever figured that out, or if he's still running from shadows that only grow longer with time.

If the world only had positive energy, there would be no positive energy at all.

Pain and negative energy are necessary parts of life. In Asian philosophy, it's all about balance. Opposite forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world. Everything in our lives is based on that principle, from food to war strategies.

There's pain in happiness, and there's happiness in pain. Facing your pain isn't adding negative energy to your life - it's actually part of positive energy.

If you don't feel the pain, you don't know what happiness is. It helps you understand life better and appreciate the good times more.

Life, as I've come to see it, is about dealing with different forces and finding a balance that works for you. These forces exist for a reason, and there's no way to avoid them. The thin line between happiness and sadness is how you balance them.

I once came across a quote that stuck with me:

"There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future."

- Aurelius Augustinus.

It makes me think of my old friend and wonder how he's changed over the years.

Looking back, I can see now that being positive all the time doesn't make someone perfect. Yogi Berra once said,

"If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be."

Being too positive makes other people think you're putting on a mask. It's okay to express your feelings. It's okay to be selfish sometimes. It's okay to feel pain in order to open yourself up to happiness. Our scars tell stories of survival, not just of pain. It's okay to be less than perfect, because you never know - it might be your best state.

To my long-lost friend, wherever you are after all these years, it doesn't matter if I was right or wrong back then. Nothing is perfect. The key to happiness isn't surrounding yourself with only positive or negative energy, but finding a balance.

True strength isn't about avoiding pain, it's about finding meaning in it.

Don't forget, without pain, you cannot feel happiness, and without happiness, you won't know what pain is.

I hope one day we will meet again. I miss you. Maybe one day I can give you a hug one more time.

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More To Unlearn

Easy

Pain

Quit

Boredom

Unfinished