There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. ~ William Shakespeare
I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot lately for some reason and it’s just hanging in my head. It’s an interesting concept because of how factual it proves to be. It’s an excellent example of Stoic optimism. Many of us spend a good majority of our days thinking something is bad, good, negative or positive. We get upset about things that we have absolutely no control over and we see them as barriers instead of opportunities. It seems to be a fairly common American thought process, I can only speak for America simply because I don’t know enough people from different countries to give an insight into whether or not it is a localized thought process or a global systemic thought process. Many of the people I have met or interacted with over my short 27 years have all had that similar thought process, we see something as being difficult and then we just give up instead of trying to find a way through. When in reality the obstacle is neither good nor bad but just an obstacle. when we define that obstacle as a negative or a positive, it is at this point where we will either give up or we will find the positive and push through or around the obstacle. The major difference, that I have observed, between the highly successful and sort of successful is being able to see obstacles and barriers not as restrictions but as learning experiences.
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. ~ John Quincy Adams
Now I’m not going to say that I am always seeing the greener pastures all the time, in fact for a vast majority of my life I was an extremely negative person, always struggling to find the good or positive in a situation. I may have seemed from, outside appearances, to be a positive person but inside I was angry, negative, and always thought I wasn’t good enough. It was a real problem. I struggled very much with confidence, acceptance, negativity, and cynicism. I was an extremely jaded child, to be honest I still can be. In the last 4ish years I have really started to live a life of positivity and perspective, trying to learn from each difficulty, find the silver lining, and tactfully find a path around an obstacle. I was practicing Stoicism without even knowing it. But I’m not perfect and I still struggle with staying positive and not being so god damn jaded cynical. It can be hard but very rewarding when you start replacing negativity with positivity. I try to do my best to evaluate myself multiple times a day, figure out why I am feeling the way I am, identify what is angering me or frustrating me and then do my best to let it go or find a lesson in what is happening. It’s all about perspective.
It’s part of life to have obstacles. It’s about overcoming obstacles; that’s the key to happiness. ~ Herbie Hancock
Positivity and understanding that the obstacle is the way will benefit you more in your life than anything else. In recovery people will often talk about self fulfilling destinies, the act of thinking about something so much that it eventually comes true. This works both for negativity as well as positivity. It’s not quite as simple as just thinking about something so much that it just happens to come true, work is involved. For example I have spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about winning the lottery but to date I have yet to be lucky enough to beat the odds. Self fulfilling destinies come through because our perspective on life is either based on a negative or a positive, when those consume our thoughts we start to subconsciously do things, little or big, that will lead down that path until eventually here we are living the thing we thought about the most.
Our life is what our thoughts make it. ~ Marcus Aurelius
Just like addicts in recovery think “I will never be able to get sober, I can’t, it’s impossible” this will eventually be factual, if you believe you can’t then you won’t be able to, that’s why you will rarely ever hear me say can’t. On the flipside though, when we constantly think about positive things and start saying things like “I can”, “it may be improbable but it’s not impossible”, or start living a positive lifestyle more and more positive things will start coming our ways. We start making little moves in positive directions, our moods start to lift, we project happiness, people see these things and react to them usually in a positive manner. I believe the Universe rewards when we put out positivity in the world and punishes when we put out negativity. I don’t think it has anything to do with a God or supreme being but more to do with the nature of our biological interconnection between all things in the universe, everything is created from the same base molecules. It’s not impossible to think that there is a connecting force between everything. I believe this connecting force is what determines whether or not the Universe rewards or punishes. It may be a flawed theory but I am living proof that negativity punishes with more negativity and positivity rewards with more positivity. Even if I am wrong in the Universal reactions of the world, it is still a damn good way to live. When we stop thinking of things as negatives and start thinking in the positive we find that obstacles are no longer obstacles but the way in which we can keep moving forward.
In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision. ~ Dalai Lama
It took me a long time to understand these fairly simple concepts but eventually I’ve gotten there. It is still very much a daily practice. Our culture is so entrenched in negativity that it can at times seem like there is no other way but there is always a way, always a silver lining, always a path to overcome any barrier or obstacle. We should never look at obstacles as obstacles but as learning opportunities, challenges to overcome, character building, and to make the obstacle a positive motivator instead of being a hindrance us from accomplishing the things that make us happy. When thinking about the concept that nothing is either good or bad but the minute we define it, it is then just that, defined. We can define the obstacles as good or bad but more importantly when we start defining the challenges as good we start making our lives much more rewarding.
There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. ~ William Shakespeare