Overmaginification of the negative and minimization of the positive

Here’s a brainstorm that hit me last night in bed. I was wondering what the point of life is if in one moment it could be turned upside down by death or illness. Why work so hard at a future when it’s going to end eventually, and we don’t know from minute to minute what the next second will bring. So why even bother?

 

 

Before even addressing the question, I first want to acknowledge two things that I know and accept upfront, whether I feel it or not:

·        My premise is wrong. Thousands of years of existence of the human race and billions of people today who are all living their lives and working hard to progress and advance and accomplish and who do not have this view. So the fact that the extreme majority of the population does not have this overly negative view of life and the world is proof positive that it is not the popular or truthful view.

·        My view is wrong. In fact, people who have this view are the ones who need therapy to change their view, not the other way around. A person with a positive outlook on life is considered healthy and happy, while people with a negative view on life that leads them to think negatively about things are the ones who need therapy and counseling to help them change their incorrect, false and inaccurate negative outlook.

·        My facts are wrong. Despite the sensationalism of disaster and tragedy, the fact remains that we live in the best of times, when death and disease are at their lowest levels in history, and disease, when it does occur is usually treatable or manageable. We also have the best preventive health tools available, have the best emergency response systems, the most advanced medical and rescue technology and unsurpassed safety standards in history. Of course, when tragedy or disaster does occur it is sensationalized, because good news doesn’t sell – only bad news. But our brains only absorb what they are fed. We read the news each day and see negativity and tragedy and horror. We hear of 5 bad news stories. But we don’t hear of the millions of non-horror stories that consist of neutral good stories (as if there is such thing, because even when things are ‘neutral’ they are miraculous), and the countless good news stories:

o   How many people are healthy?

o   How many people have jobs to go to?

o   How many people got married?

o   How many people got engaged?

o   How many people had babies?

o   How many people became pregnant?

o   How many people found new jobs?

o   How many people were released from hospitals?

o   How many people had minor illnesses that were easily treatable?

o   How many people were cured from serious illnesses?

o   How many illnesses were prevented?

o   How many people stopped their addictive behaviors?

o   How many people had a health concern, had a test and the test results were good?

o   How many people had a health concern, had a test and the test results were not as bad as feared and is easily treatable?

o   How many people drove to work and did not get into a car accident?

o   How many people did get into a car accident but it was minor and no one was injured?

o   How many people made a new friend?

o   How many people found a new opportunity in life?

o   How many enemies made peace?

o   How many people are happy?

o   How many children learned something new today?

o   How many children were provided with the tools needed to develop into healthy, well-adjusted adults?

o   And the list goes on, ad infinitum…

But those things don’t make news, which leaves our brains to see the relatively minor and statistically insignificant as the only facts, which results in….drumroll please….overmaginification of the negative, and minimization of the positive…when in fact the negative is the minority and the positive is the norm and the majority. But fed and overfed with exclusively negativity, the brain has no perspective…it needs a scale, a full, big picture, to enable it to keep the negative in a realistic perspective.

So going in, I already know what the truth is and that my perspective is grossly inaccurate. My goal is to internalize the truth that I know and accept, because although I may not feel the reality of the truth, is till know it as fact and am willing to work toward internalizing it. So we’re off to a pretty good start because there is no need to convince me of what the truth is, only to internalize it and live it.