Tell me what’s a positive person.
Sometimes people tell me I’m a positive person and it lowkey pisses me off. It’s not exactly what they say, it’s more what they mean. They just say, “you’re a positive person,” but what they’re really saying is, “you’re one of those annoying glass-half-full people who wakes up with sunshine up their ass and I hate you because you don’t realize life sucks.”
But oh, ho, ho, my friend, I do in fact realize life sucks. It’s a great big pile of shit and then you die, but what good is wallowing in it? I’ve decided that the wisest, most productive thing to do with my time here on Earth is to make the most of it. This is precisely why I wake up like sunshine’s coming out my ass: because I chose to.
Heard of the Serenity Prayer? It goes something like this, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” It took me about eight years to realize that there’s a whole bunch of shit that I can change. Hate your job? Get a new one! Tired of being around negative people? Dump ’em! Want to see the world? Buy that ticket!
Once you decide what’s important to you, you just go for it. I decided being happy was the most important thing to me, so that’s what I work at. Every single day. It’s that simple.
Simple. Not easy.
It’s not easy to buckle down and do the things that will make you into your best self, but you do it anyways. You work your ass off to be what people consider a positive person. After you prioritize, you plan. You carve out time to do the things that matter. You find polite ways to tell the things you hate to “fuck off.” And then when bad things find you anyways, you get mindful. You talk to a friend. You talk to a specialist. You literally meditate. You learn how to reframe your situations. You learn how to change your reactions. You look for the lesson in everything. When you fall you dust yourself off and lie to yourself that it’s going to be okay until you believe that it’s going to be okay, and then it is. You read books about positive stuff. And then you read for fun. And then you read more books about positive stuff because you forgot all the positive stuff you just read. You seek out things that bring you joy. You laugh as much as possible. You laugh at yourself as much as possible.
At least that’s what I do. Because if I don’t do those things – every single day – I’ll go back to being a person that I don’t want to be. A person who is miserable all the time and doesn’t appreciate the opportunity she has to make the one life she was given a great one. I guess you can call me a positive person, but if I am, you should get like me, and stop hatin’.