Disney’s Frozen got it right on a number of levels, and letting it go, is right up there at the top. We are inundated with so much bullshit on a daily basis that can clog up our brains, slow down our creativity, and effect our mood. And without realizing it, we hold onto these pieces of negativity. We may even relay the negativity to other people, spreading it and creating a toxic space that is difficult to extricate ourselves from and makes it difficult to think clearly. Especially when being negative can be far easier than being positive. Being critical is easier than being positive and seeing the good in people. Criticizing others can also make us feel better about ourselves, as we assume we know better than them. Or worse, that we are better than them.
No one is better than anyone else. We are all equals, we all have the same parts, give or take. And yet, negative people will look for traits in their fellow humans that they believe make them inferior, or less than. We follow some people on social media for the sole purpose of finding things that make them inferior to ourselves, tricking ourselves into thinking that this makes us feel better about our own lives, when in reality, it does the opposite.
These kinds of negative acts can come from places of jealousy, but they all stem from places of insecurity. We are insecure about our own beauty so we look to find flaws in other people. We are insecure about our own talents, so when we see someone with our dream job we find out everything we can to prove they are unqualified, or at least not as great as everyone thinks. And by constantly feeding into the negativity, we ourselves become Negative Nancy’s. Like I said, it can be easier to be negative about something than positive. It feels safer. If we hold a negative stance towards change, then we can resist it. If someone proposes something that will change how we think or look at things, or how things have always been done, we resist. And in resisting, we make a list of reasons why these changes are a bad idea. We negate the proposal and offer all the negative reasons we can think of to avoid having to deal with change.
This culture of negativity surrounds us. For every positive comment on social media, there are a dozen others cutting someone down. For every happy news story, there is thirty minutes worth of negative ones. It leaves us feeling drained, without hope, negative. How could we not, when everything around us is depicted that way. When we see everything in a negative light, we become bitter, cynical creatures. The negativity acts like a disease and spreads to every facet of life until almost every single thing that we say is negative, and it becomes just a matter of time before that either spreads to those around us, or, people cannot handle the negativity any more and simply stop associating with us. But, what if we let that go? What if all the hate, all the negativity and all the bullshit, we just decided to let go? What kind of impact would that have on our own happiness?
I have always thought of myself as a rather positive person, telling myself that everything will be okay and work out, and the glass is half full. But recently, I have found myself shooting down ideas that in hindsight, are interesting and fun. I have found myself being negative and a drag to be around. And unfortunately, I cannot avoid being around myself. This realization concerned me because what kind of life will I have if I shoot down every idea that is outside of my comfort zone.
This got me thinking as to why I am being such a downer and so negative lately. I try not to blame others for my own shortcomings or problems. But I do think negativity is contagious. If we constantly expose ourselves to negative people and things, we start to see everything in that toxic light. All the good in the world becomes harder to see because we are inundated with the bad. This is why I have stopped keeping up with the news. It seems there is just one bad story after another being reported on. No one wants to report the happy stories, just the traumatizing ones. And this becomes all that people talk about. So I have found myself purposely zoning out in conversations about these events. Or surrounding myself with people whom I know I can have lighthearted and happy conversations with. Because I need more positivity and happiness in my life.
For over a year, I have focused on every bad thing that has happened to me, and what I have found is that bad things continue to happen. My mood, which used to be light and happy, is low, guarded, and waiting to see the next terrible thing that is going to happen. And I know it will. Because if you constantly look for the bad and focus on the negative, it will always happen, it will always be there. The difference is how you choose to handle it. You can sit and dwell on all the terrible things in your life, or you can let it go, and make a choice to be open-minded and positive about your life (you only get one, after all). It may be harder, especially with all the negativity that blasts our various screens every single day and the fact that life can be hard and harsh at times, but I do think that choosing to be positive is a necessary ingredient for happiness. And happiness, while simple in theory, is a complicated place to get to and stay at. So, when you get there (or if you are there already) and someone tries to bring you down with their negative notions, I say listen to Elsa, and just let it go.
P.S. 