Let's cut right to it. Roses die eventually and fake ones don't have a scent. This is my natural state of cynicism, above all else, towards our abilities to "stop and smell the roses." A beautiful sentiment, I must agree, but to someone who is inherently struggling with an issue, whether internal or external, a reminder to take a moment and count your blessings is not necessarily a foolproof way to sort out our woes. Don't get me wrong, I think a positive attitude can change your view on your bad luck just the much as the next yogi but I am never fooled by my own ability to bullshit being positive.
I spend all day putting on a face and speaking in a high pitched voice to cater to the general public like I'm someone worth talking to, someone worth listening to, and often someone worth confiding in. It regularly feels like I'm lying to those around me when I'm having a particularly bad day, vocalize it, then turn around and start laughing with a customer. All fake. Anyone who works in customer service knows the cycle of how this works, but I feel like very few understand relate to the guilt I feel; like I'm not being truthful to myself and I'm not being truthful to my coworkers. Clearly, this is a different type of fake positivity than what I initially set out to speak on, but it isn't so different enough that I didn't feel a pull to speak on it.
The past few years I've especially felt like I'm not "allowed" to be vocal about my unhappiness because nobody has time for it. This is partly true, I'm still of the belief that nobody should feel compelled to give two shits about what anyone else is feeling because it's not their business to, but that's the realist side of me, not the empathetic side. It's the negative nature I've grown to understand. Especially in the age of social media where everyone parades their accomplishments and best sides around for media attention from those they do and do not know, we never get the full truth in the first place. and you look just as vain talking about it because you're letting people know that you've overcome something or you're trying to be strong for X, Y, Z reasons. And I do think honesty should be celebrated, but with the posting and the attention and the likes comes the responsibility and the assumption that there has to be a follow-up story. The damsel in distress was rescued from the castle.
Here's the part with the double-edged sword. Whether you're happy or you're sad, it becomes for other people's entertainment. As long as there's a part of you that's unusual compared to your counterparts, there's going to be some sort of value to your struggle or your success. Your success less so, because a struggle is something to recover from. Ideally, anyway. But to forcefully say "I'm going to overcome this!" and not mean it, in my opinion, is not doing much in terms of being honest with yourself. You're allowed to not be happy. You're allowed to have bad days and have to work through them. You do. not. have to put on a happy face to appease those that feel uncomfortable in your discomfort. If you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, you don't HAVE to turn a flashlight on if it won't actually make you feel better.
This is not how everyone feels. And I understand that. And I'm happy about that because it leads the rest of us to a place of learning and growth. And to this point, there is a lot more to uncover about the topic of toxic or unrealistic positivity. None of those I can fathom at the moment because I am quite literally falling asleep on my keyboard with a migraine pounding in my head. and that's my reality. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to think what I should be saying, instead of feeling miserable, is "at least when I wake up in the morning I'll feel so much better!" is it realistic? Yes and no. Does it make me feel better? Absolutely not. There's a part of me that understands that in order to appreciate the good things that DO actually happen, you need to articulate the bad. You need to understand where it comes from and where it goes and how to get rid of it when you feel you have the energy to. Some people are uncomfortable in that discovery and I think those are often the people who put on a facade of unrealistic happiness.
I come from a long line of glass half empty type people. Personally, it leaves room for the positive to happen. One year I was in a bus station with two friends of mine on the way to New York City to see a concert at The Gramercy. A giant snowstorm had just hit a day prior and a lot of the busses had stopped running. Time was ticking and getting later and later. At some point in the morning, I said out loud "I'm just going to plan to not be there. I've come to accept this will not happen." One of my two friends said something along the lines of that comment being negative and at that moment I came to understand that there's always a clause with my reaction to these types of things. I expect the negative to happen in order to be elated with the positive. Eventually, we got on a bus, and hours later on another and hours later were standing in the middle of The Gramercy with a bunch of like-minded people willing to brave the negative wind chill just like we were.
This truly has no point to it. Toxic positivity is something I have a lot of feelings about but are often unable to make sense of them because of the complexities of the concept. Maybe in the end it isn't that complex, but with happiness regularly coming with a condition, at least in my case, the rabbit hole goes awfully far down.
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