It’s Difficult to Stay Positive
How often do you hear the advice, “You must stay positive to reach your goals!”?
Well, I’ll beat the dead horse: Staying positive is essential to success.
But I’d also like to admit that it’s difficult to stay positive, especially since we live in a troubled world.
I also must remind myself that the world has always been troubled. I assume it was difficult to stay positive during the Elizabethan era, a time that had survived the plague, brutal wars, famine… (Why else would Shakespeare have obsessed over the themes of death in his writing?)
Here’s where it’s different for the modern world to stay positive, maybe even more difficult:
The Elizabethan poets, writers and artists lived in a trouble world, but they didn’t have the continual negative messages and news stories circling their eyes and ears on radios, TVs, computers, and cellphones. Words didn’t travel quickly, and while the overall uneasiness of a dangerous world was always around them, the daily news of the world probably felt different. Distant.
Now, we are bombarded with small and large doses of negativity every day, maybe every minute, and often it a story that disempowers us: A story about an overwhelming crisis in another country; a story about our broken political system that is a snake eating its own tail; a story about high unemployment numbers; and higher costs of living; a fading middle class; another mass gun shooting; etc. etc etc….
So yes, it’s essential to stay positive about what you are doing; but also know you are not alone in facing the difficulty of staying positive. If it was so easy to stay optimistic, we wouldn’t have to be reminded so often.
So stay positive; and if it’s any comfort, know you are not alone in the struggle to do so.
I got to share a FaceTime call with Lois while I was on tour. That helped me stay positive during difficult days away from home!
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