It’s Not Naive To Be Positive, It’s Naive To Be A Defeatist Right Now
When everything seems to be going wrong at once and the future becomes highly uncertain, the optimists tend to get chastised for their positivity.
They’re told to be realistic.
They’re told to watch, and see, and witness what’s happening around them, as though a high spirit could not come from anything but ignorance.
The truth is that when it really matters, it’s not naive to be positive, it’s naive to be a defeatist.
When we believe that the worst possible outcome is the most likely outcome, we neglect everything life has tried to teach us so far.
The shadows exist, but they are not permanent
People fundamentally care about one another.
Our worst enemies are often our own minds.
When we think we have been buried, we have often been planted, and are being set up to bloom.
You can be in a place of complete uncertainty and still be intent on seeing the good, finding the good, and creating the good.
This does not make you naive.
This makes you empowered.
This makes you empowered because it takes profound courage to look at a hopeless situation and find a shred of light.
This makes you empowered because most people adapt to what’s happening around them instead of trying to influence what’s around them.
This makes you empowered because the truth is that it is in ignorance that hopelessness breeds. It is in turning a blind eye to everything we still have to hope for that people become the most closed-minded versions of themselves.
This makes you empowered because the truth is that the world does not exist in black and white.
There is wisdom in the darkness, there is heaviness in the light.
There are brilliant minds, uplifted souls, the most skilled experts on the planet all working to heal and resolve and move us forward.
When we are positive, it is not that we have faith in ourselves, it is that we have faith in them.
We have faith in the people around us, the people who have spent their lifetimes preparing to handle a crisis.
The truth is that life will never unfold perfectly, the world will never function seamlessly, and the darkness will always be a possibility.
It’s not a matter of whether or not we choose to see it, it’s a matter of how we respond.
Whether we know it or not, we have been susceptible to wide-scale breakdown for years.
It was just at this tipping point that we saw the vulnerability that was there all along.
This isn’t to discourage our sense of progress.
This is to remind us that the people who throw their hands up and claim the world is a hopeless void are not the ones that move it forward — even when everything is going alright.
The people who move humanity in the right direction are the ones who emphasize the good, the progress, the path forward.
The people who move us through the darkness and out of it are not the ones who think that they are powerless.
They are the ones who are so aware of their power, they couldn’t bear to do anything but use it to shine light.