Be Positive Or Get Real? A Showdown.

It’s time to settle this debate once and for all. Are you positive? Are you a realist? Are you a realist who thinks that positive people need to get their head out of the clouds? Are you a positive person who thinks the realists needs to change their perception?

All of those are great questions which deserved to be answered.

If you’re a person who has to pick a side, then to pick a side you are in denial of who you really are.

I’ve written several articles on this blog pertaining to what I’m about to say but I have never succinctly and sufficiently painted the full picture.

Firstly, lets put positivity in it’s place.

Postivity and negativity

Positivity and Negativity are two sides of the same coin and they need each other. That is the nature of duality and the relative universe that we live in.

There can be no light without dark, hate without love, good without bad, north without south, past without future. Even in the majority of religious scriptures, the supreme often says I am the creator of all things, EVERYTHING!

You are a soul that contains both the good and evil. You are both the hero and villain. It’s not even a question of choosing what path to take, about being the superman or lex luthor, but about understanding that you cannot be one without the other.

You must learn to love your negative side as much as you love your positive side. For without your negative side you would not have a positive side.

The Hero and the villain

A hero is not needed unless he has a villain that gives his/her very existence a purpose. A great way to show this point is by looking the movie ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. In the movie, Bruce Wayne has not been seen in public for 8 years. He only emerges when a villain comes along. That allows him to become the hero once again, and without him, he had no purpose.

A hero has no purpose until the villain gives him/her one. The villain has not arch rival to challenge him/her without a superhero. Their relationship is actually a synergy.

So what I am saying; that we need villains? Not necessarily that we need them; but that when they do exist they serve their purpose in allowing the heroes to fulfil their purpose.

Positive Thinking

I believe we need to tread carefully with the way that we define positive thinking. Positive thinking is not the absence of negative thoughts. It’s not about masking those thoughts or denying the part of you that is negative. It’s not about hiding them or fighting them.

You are a being with two sides and you need to love both equally. If you try and mask your dark side it will emerge with greater force. It will burst out of you to teach you a lesson. You were not meant to be positive, you were meant to accept both sides of you with the understand each serves it’s purpose, just like the example of the hero and the villain.

Positive thinking is not about making happy and nice thoughts and hoping that having them will make a difference to your day, because they won’t.

True positive thinking is formulating a vision for your day, your week, your month, your entire life. Being truly real, is actually ‘DOING’ real.

You need both to make things happen for that vision to truly manifest.

You need to establish what you truly want and then do the things to make that happen. You need both and neither will be successful without the other.

Positivity and Happiness

Thinking positive happy thoughts will not make you happy. In fact, happiness is not what most people think it is.

Happiness is not the temporary elation associated with getting a new car, a new job or getting laid. True happiness is being present, grateful, feeling fulfilment, satisfaction and being in ‘flow’.

The goal of positivity is not happiness and neither does happiness emerge through positivity.

The Upshot

Positivity is not the absence of negativity and neither is it putting a positive spin on everything. Being realistic also doesn’t serve you unless you have a vision and ‘do real’.

Positivity and negativity are a pair and go hand in hand. You are both, you have both, you are a hero and a villain and you need to know that both parts serve their purpose.

Do not deny the existence of your negativity or suppress it. It is your teacher.

And finally…

Society, religion and some philosophies share a huge collective myth that one day we’ll reach a point where our negative or dark side will disappear and we’ll all be perfect, peaceful and happy. This is not going to happen.

I went through a phase in my life when I was really into positive thinking. I read every book I could find. I was caught for years in the illusion of of the one-sided, positive thinking world. I would set out in the morning determined to be positive, but somewhere during the day, something would happen. the longer I stayed positive, the more something would blow, and I’d get really negative, either to myself or someone else. I noticed that the more I tried to put on the facade of being positive, the more I’d beat myself up inside. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get rid of my negative side.

There is elated positive thinking and depressed negative thinking, and right between the two is present and loving thinking.

So does positive thinking have a place? Yes! From depression up to the center, it is wise to think positively. Does negative thinking or healthy skepticism have a place? Yes, from manic elation to the center, you have to be a negating skeptic.

– Dr John DeMartini.