I consider myself a positive person.
Stop laughing. I am.
But maybe I should define terms.
Negative person hears “I’ve been watching you. You do good work. So I’m going to give you a promotion and more money, too.”
Negative person thinks “My boss has been spying on me. He just admitted it. Now he’s giving me a bigger job and will no doubt expect me to work longer hours. And more money? Probably just enough to screw me on taxes so I end up making even less than I do today…”
Do you know some negative people? Do yourself a favor…if you see them teetering on the edge of a cliff, look away. Seriously. You would be doing a favor to the person you don’t save. In some twisted reality, the more a person complains and sows misery, the longer God seems to let him live. You can do your part to correct this injustice by minding your own business near a cliff with a person like this. I’m just saying…
Positive person hears “Mrs. Walker, this might not have been what you were expecting to hear, but as your Ob/Gyn I’m relatively certain that either you have swallowed a very large object or you’re expecting.”
Positive person thinks “A baby? We’re having another baby? We can’t afford the two we already have! But that’s okay. This is an unexpected joy. We’ll figure out the financial stuff, but our home has more than enough love to make room for another little one.”
Positive people aren’t clueless or unaware. They don’t fall out of bed with stupid grins on their faces. When bad things happen, they react. Sometimes they react badly as a first knee-jerk reaction. But positive people choose not to stay down. When you meet a positive person, chances are you want them to stick around for a while (as opposed to falling over the cliff’s edge).
Pollyanna person hears “Did you have a red Ford Focus parked at the corner? It just got towed.”
Pollyanna person thinks “I’ve always wondered where the impound lot is. I finally have my chance to find out! I’ll bet it’s in an enchanted land that has year-round cherry blossoms and maybe a chocolate river running through it!”
Pollyanna people don’t mean to be annoying. They can’t help it. Somewhere during their formative years, they took one too many baseballs to the head. When these people gain weight, they’re thrilled that they now have more to love. When they fall down, they gush about how smooth the floor is. When the airline lose their luggage, they believe that their suitcase has been working too hard, and they hope the bag ends up somewhere nice.
Pollyanna people seem impervious to the less pleasant parts of reality. They find silver-lining while staring directly into a bolt of lightning. When they run out of gas, they immediately note the upside: only 8 miles to the next service station.
Life is a series of good things and bad things, sometimes all within a matter of minutes. It takes some positivity to keep your head up when things look dark. Negative people live in the darkness. For them, the hard part of popping out and seeing daylight. But Pollyanna people, God love them, program themselves to express positive sentiments before they have even finished falling down the stairs.
So what’s my point? I don’t have one today. You think Babe Ruth made contact with the ball each at bat? Hardly. But if I had a point, it would be this: find the positive whenever you can, and resist the urge to be flaming negative or blindly Pollyanna (at least when you’re around me).