Finding The Positive When It Feels Like There Isnt Much To Be Positive About - Live Loved

It was the summer going into 7th grade, and we were on a bus headed to Miami. The hair sliding out of my ponytail near the back of my neck was drenched and stuck to my skin just like the T-shirt that was beginning to cling to my back- nothing beats the hot and humid Miami heat.

I was with my youth group on a mission trip, and we had five buses with over 50 kids crammed in the sticky seats- tight and cozy. Summer camps and mission trips were the weeks students lived for.

We worked summer daycamps throughout the week- making crafts with little kids, playing games and singing songs. There were many fun moments of uncontrollable laughter and joy, but there were also the moments where the thought of being cozied up at home sounded nice too.

Like, when it’s close to the end of the week. Sleep deprivation, an aching body and a sour attitude kick in. A chance to sit down in the shade to cool off for a few seconds is appealing. You move to make that dream come true; but before you have a chance to rest, your name is called and you’re needed again. It was easy to complain.

Or like when 50 kids have been around each other in confined spaces for too long, and a few start getting stir crazy. They pee in water guns to squirt at each other and freeze each other’s underwear (didn’t laugh at the first one, but I definitley laughed at the frozen underwear). As a result, the rest of the students are made to stay up later and sit through a lesson on why you shouldn’t pee in waterguns and put Nair in shampoo bottles. It was easy to complain.

Or when you’re playing sports and get knocked out with a kickball and have to be carried by someone to get ice. You go back to work after cooling down because you came to finish a job and finish is what you’ll do. Your head is pounding and your body hurts. It was easy to complain.

And then Friday came. We crammed the boys’ duffel bags and the girls three-piece luggage sets into the buses and mentally prepared ourselves for the four hours we would be on the road together. We started driving; and a few hours later, the engine light came on the dashboard. Everyone in the bus was alerted of this when the temperature quickly declined and a few faces started turning beat red (mine included). We had to stop in the middle-of-nowhere Yeehaw Junction at a repair shop, which was the only place close, and we sat there for four hours. In the heat. Sleep deprived. In the middle of nowhere. Hyped up on the sugar sticks we chugged earlier on the bus. It was really easy to complain.

There were a lot of moments when it was really easy to complain. Nothing went the way we wanted it to or the way we planned for it to smoothly run. It was easy to compare what we thought should happen with what did happen and view the turn of events as negative. There were a lot of moments when it was easy to complain and question our purpose for being in the position we were in.

It was really easy to want to complain.

I’ve always known myself to be very optimistic. My blind optimism has me hopefully searching for the good in circumstances, events, situations, people. For most of my life, it’s a natural part of who I am, engrained in my character (and probably my DNA). I like to see things positively rather than bitterly and hope for the best before I think of the worst.

As I get older and experience more of the highs and lows that come in life, I’ve come to find that this blind optimism I have can no longer be blind.

I’ve seen selfishness destroy people I care about. I’ve seen mental illness peel away those I love. I’ve experienced the result of people’s wrong motives and manipulation, and I’ve learned that not everyone grew up in a loving home- some abusive and destructive homes. I’ve seen this world without blinders on…. I’ve seen it for what it is: broken.

And that makes it really easy to want to complain.

At first, I was really discouraged.

I was really discouraged when my eyes were opened to the desperation and hopelessness that is present in this world. My eyes were opened when I experienced the consequences when not everyone has the best intentions and not everyone is actually good. My eyes were opened when I realized some people have a lot more to complain about than a bus breaking down… and optimism for them usually isn’t second-nature, or third or fourth haha. It’s not even imagined as an option.

As I sat in this discouragement, wondering how I had been so blind to these toxic and depressing realities, I realized it’s these realities that make optimism even more wonderful.

Optimism is no longer blind, it’s chosen.

It’s chosen when I see that not everyone may have the best intentions for me, but I can still choose to see the best in people despite that. It’s chosen when I see that there are consequences to other’s selfishness, but we can choose to accept that not everyone is always selfish, not everyone is narccisisticly prideful. It’s chosen when I see that people have hurt me, but I can choose to forgive and understand that I sometimes hurt people too; and we need to give the same grace we need from time to time.

I began thinking about this after we got our rental car broken into while we were on vacation. I was extremely crushed and questioned how someone can have so much hate in their heart. I was feeling discouraged and let down… and then I remembered I had to turn the situation around.

I thought back to that 7th grade mission trip. There was a thing I started where every time I heard someone complain or say something negative, I made them list five positives to make up for the one negative… on the spot… in front of me and everyone else. It became such a common occurrence that by the end of the trip, as soon as someone said something negative, they instinctly turned to me and rattled off five positives without me saying a word.

Looking back, I laugh because it is kind of funny; but it began a pattern of people identifying the negative thought and replacing their perspective with more positives. After just a few days of doing this, it became a habit.

I want more of my habits to look like having a positive perspective rather than a negative one.

So, this is an exercise I do now when I’m tempted to complain or feel discouraged by the realities of this world. I state the postives that I know are much bigger than the negatives. And that’s when I realized that because my optimism is no longer blind, it’s chosen. And how wonderful it is that I get to CHOOSE to be positive! I know the other side, but I consciously decide not to focus on it.

I choose to focus on the good because even though I know there is wrong, I also know there is good. When we choose to see the wrong, we become frustrated and bitter. When we choose to see the good, we look at things the way God intended for us to.

This is how we are to come to God. He tells us to come to Him as little children. “And He said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven'” (Matthew 18:3). We are to be like children with CHILD-LIKE faith. For a child, faith and optimism aren’t blind. They are chosen. We are to have faith like a child and believe in His goodness, as well as the goodness in people and the situations we go through.

So, I no longer have blind optimism, I have chosen optimism. And I think that makes it even more beautiful- I see it clearly.