Every so often, I get asked how to be positive. I believe being positive is the consequence of a choice.
I don’t think you can actually choose to be positive. Could I be wrong? Sure. But I don’t think that I am.
This afternoon, after the soccer game, Wendy had set up a volunteer event at Bright Blessings for the Regulators Baseball Club teams.
It was a great event. And one I hope to do again sooner rather than later.
There was positivity all around. As a group, we were helping. We were making a positive impact on someone else’s life.
We could control our actions. The decision to help. But specifically, we were indirectly helping kids that weren’t in direct control of their situations.
With so much wrong with the world today, it feels like we are losing control. But that’s because we tend to focus on the stuff we cannot control.
To continue with the service project example, our kids cannot control the circumstances that are happening to kids they don’t even know. But they were presented with an avenue to help. To pay forward some of their own blessings. They can control that gratitude. I hope that they are learning over time to control their controllables.
We teach it on the field. I hope we’re teaching it for off the field as well.
That is the secret to how to be positive.
Focus on what you can control. It’s only when you lose focus on those things and start worrying about things you have no control over that you lose perspective. You turn negative.
When you’re scrolling the socials, a lot of the angst and disappointment, and anxiety comes from our perception of other people. But just like our players can’t control what’s going on with the kids we are helping, you can’t control what other people do. Or say. Or fake on social media.
You can, however, control how much time you spend there, what you use it for, and your own reaction to it.
Take the insane political divide. People have decided that they are going to judge everyone based on their opinions. And then, they are going to put their efforts into trying to either change them (they won’t), or to belittle them.
You have no control over anyone else’s opinion. So just stop it. If you really want to get into politics, assume that the other person has a reason for what they believe. And have a rational conversation. If the other person doesn’t want a civil conversation, then you move on. You control your level of engagement. Period.
I get flack sometimes for keeping my circle of friends relatively small. But I have control over who I spend time with. And as I said here and here, my time is my most valuable asset. I control how I spend it and who I spend it with. Ruthlessly.
That’s how to be positive. Control your controllables. Don’t worry about the other stuff.
I know I pan the socials a lot. My dirty secret is that I surf TikTok. But there’s a qualifier here. I don’t really look for trends and funny videos in the traditional sense. I use it for learning. And for ideas. I like videos that I want to return to later that might help me as a creator.
As the year progresses, I plan to expand my footprint beyond just writing content. I really want to get into video. For that, I’ll need to push through some social anxiety of being judged. Same social anxiety I’m crushing right now when I write. For now, I have more confidence in the written word because I feel like I can fix my mistakes.
Video seems to be a little more squishy. I am in the process of identifying my controllables, so that I can have a positive experience with it.
I’m grateful for this platform though. I want to be a writer. And that’s going to take practice. Just like being a ‘filmmaker’ will once I expand into short-form videos.
I’m grateful for everyone that reads these entries. I know at this moment that it’s not a lot of people (if any). I also know that will not remain the case.
Finally, I’m grateful for the one-percent better journey. It started with just brushing my teeth. We’re up to almost finishing two books in the first week of the year, starting a meditation routine, a minimum of two blog posts per day here, and three things I’m grateful for every morning and night. Oh, and some weight loss progress (really, progress on my experiment).
See you in the morning!
