09/16/2013
Recently, I’ve been giving my son a hard time about his pessimism. It’s really easy to see why he’s had a hard time with it. Just a few short weeks into baseball season, and as he was really getting excited about playing the game again, he suffered a broken leg on a slide into third base. He had made new friends on the team and was enjoying not just the game, but also the camaraderie of the relationships he was developing. All that appeared to be coming to an end with the broken leg.
As he went through the healing process, little changes and feelings he hadn’t experienced before seemed to make him think things were going worse instead of getting better. The darkness in the foot and the continued swelling caused him to question if it was healing, even though the doctor said it was going well. After one particular visit to the doctor, when he’d been worried the leg wasn’t healing correctly, I texted him, calling him Negative Nelly repeatedly to rouse him from his pessimism.
He did make it to some of the baseball games in an effort to let the team know he was still supporting them and those moments seemed to lift his spirits. Then the prognosis of extended time before he would be able to get back to normal pulled him back down. Stuck in his room keeping the leg up, he kind of became a recluse and didn’t interact with the family much
This year we didn’t have enough players for a football team, an incredibly depressing thought for a team which had played for the state championship the previous year. We cooperated with a neighboring town, and he had hopes of playing with them. Even though he knew he wouldn’t start the season, he participated in practices and team get-togethers, again to show support for the team, and I think to make himself feel better about things.
On his last visit to the doctor, he was under the impression he would be able to play in just a few weeks. But after meeting with the physical therapist, his hopes were dashed again as he found out how long the actual recovery would take.
All of these things seemed to pile up, and he had taken on a bit of a negative attitude about things. He seemed to focus on the bad news rather than the good. Again, an easy pit to fall into when you are young and things don’t seem to be going your way.
But he’s not alone. It’s often easy to let life’s little obstacles rob us of our positive outlook. As adults, sometimes we fall into the spin cycle of negativity and can’t seem to get out. Financial hardships, health issues, the daily grind… they all seem to suck the life and energy out of us.
However, there are those among us who somehow are able to skip over the negativity and always focus on the positive. They are amazing people, and I often wonder if they really never get down or they just find a way to pull out of it before anyone notices. Either way, it is an admirable trait, to be able to face the world looking through those rose colored glasses and stay perpetually on the upside of things. However, many of us have to work a little harder to stay on the up and up.
One way to keep things in focus is to remember that as bad as things seem, “this too shall pass.” Even though my son’s leg was broken, it will heal, and in the long run he will be better for the experience. He will learn from it and he will see that he can push through it.
Another way to overcome those moments of negativity is to count your blessings. A little over a year ago, my son… along with the rest of his family…had lost his home. We faced something we had never expected. It is a suddenly overwhelming experience to be without all with which you are familiar. But with a great amount of support, we weathered it and we were brought to a place where we could see what was really important in our lives. Even with the loss, we had some wonderful things for which we could be thankful.
Perhaps, our negativity is the result of a bad decision or a mistake. If so, we need to recognize we all make mistakes and avoid continued punishment. We must make the decision to learn from the mistake and move on. We can’t allow it to continue to eat away at our confidence or energy levels. The more time we devote to dwelling on it, the more time is lost for moving to a more positive frame of mind.
When faced with the negative, we can stop our thought patterns and redirect our focus. Forcing ourselves to think about other things, occupying our minds with other thoughts can help us to overcome that pulling of our souls into the darkness. Surrounding ourselves with positive thinkers can help as well. Whatever it takes, we can pull it off. We can avoid being a Negative Nelly or a Pessimistic Paul by looking for what’s right or good with our lives. We can look forward to the time when we heal and become stronger than we were because of the experience.
