“He who searches for evil, must first look at his own reflection.” -Confucious
Few years ago, my wife, my daughter and I got together with my longtime college mate whom I had not meet for quite some time.
We enjoyed dinner together, at least I enjoyed it until my daughter abruptly uttered something alarming to me as we departed from the dinner.
“You really need a positive hearing aid dad.”
I was stunned by her wording.
After we reached home, I asked my wife about a positive hearing aid that our daughter was talking about.
Language of negativity
“The real problem is that you interrupt people when they talk to you and insert your negativity immediately without even completely listening to them,” my wife said.
“Not only that, after your injection of negativity on anything, you change topics without giving a chance to the other person what they were actually thinking.”
Quite stunning for me, not only my daughter, but my wife also proved me very wrong.
“And you not only bring your negative side first when you respond, you always talk at people, not with people”.
“Just forget about whether you talk negatively or positively on the topic.”
“My dear, if you talk more than half the time with only exploration of the more negative sides on any topic, you have a serious problem, negativity bias, just accept it,” my wife said.
Ouch!
The wording from my wife was an eye-opener for me.
Fortunately, she also advised me not to bring negative first but to accept the reality, accept the present situation, be more comfortable with surroundings, listen to people with full open ears, and speak.
She advised that If I express my negative sides first, I have a problem with people and whole mindset, especially, I have a listening problem with some sort of dissatisfaction associated with me.
I couldn’t sleep that night, the curtain of my life fell off completely not by some outsiders but by my own people.
Sometimes these kinds of moments appear in everybody’s life, it’s only the matter of realization.
And obviously, when?
Next morning, I determined that I would be my daughter’s and my love of life’s favorite positive person.
But how?
I started this journey by reading good books.
The first book I read on the topic was, “The Lost Art of Listening ” by Michael Nichols, PhD, professor of psychology.
The author says, “listening is a skill and like any skill it must be developed. Listening is a natural outgrowth of caring and concern for people.”
Poor listening, habits, and negativity
I learned that If I am a poor listener, I am more likely to become a negative person.
The most negative person is the most worrying person, who worries all the time internally so that negativity comes out of their mouth first.
I learned some essential lessons eventually from reading good books.
To improve my positive attitude and thinking, I must listen well. I have to restrain myself from disagreeing or talking or sharing my own thoughts.
To understand more positive side, I must hold back what I have to say and control the urge to interrupt.
Most people aren’t really interested in our negative explanation until we become convinced that we have heard and appreciated theirs.
I learned that if I really want a positive attitude, I have to exercise humility and restraint, I have to change my behavior as I mature by thinking process.
Most of our positive attitudes come from our adaptation, surrounding, and the nature of work we do.
As we all know Charles Darwin’s theory, “It is not the smart nor the strong that survive, but those who have the ability to adapt.”
Remember, good listening skill is an adaptation of many things in life.
Adaptation with an open mind and open ears crushes the negativity inside us.
I reevaluated my lifestyle, my thinking, and my own expectations of life.
I have so much to be thankful for, not only with the life I’m living, but also with the contribution I’m making around.
Then why does my negativity always appear first?
Of course, at one point of my life, I was tired of watching my life struggle aimlessly in the horizon, many failures and missing opportunities, zero financial knowledge, and growing increasingly unhappy on everything.
I was too worried about things which never happened before but still thinking about them for future.
Those moments probably helped me to cultivate my negativity all the way up to a certain point.
The serious challenges for me were overcoming adversity and handling worry and stress.
I was very weak at understanding the value of relationships.
If we don’t understand the value of any relationship then we have no way of knowing any mental and physical profile.
I was very poor at making decisions, and, most importantly, absolutely unknown about the process of letting things go in life.
At some point in our lives, we have to decide whether to live to work or work to live.
I completely forgot about it.
I completely forgot these two words “let go”.
I learned the best way to ease my anxiety during times of stress is to recognize the anxiety because it brings negativity.
What is this?
Where is it coming from?
What is its cause?
For me, anxiety was a major contributing factor for my negativity.
Right work selection, status quo bias, and negativity
I have to be calmed by understanding my right path. Of course, there could be many right paths but I have to not only recognize the right path but also follow it so that there is less stress that is counterproductive for me.
To be positive, I learned that I have to be proactive, I have to be calmed by doing not just the right thing, but the best thing possible.
I must know my best thing because it can be different for different people, but it’s up to me what is best for me.
One of the reasons for my negativity I realized was my status quo bias.
It was my irrational tendency to prefer choices that maintain the status quo even when other choices would make me better off.
I was very scared to change a few things in my life.
This tendency had many implications in my life.
I would like to read about Charles Darwin at home more than attending my friend’s casual party but I didn’t want to offend my friend.
I would like an afternoon nap more than roaming around a shopping mall but I didn’t want to tell anybody about this.
Some people think that status quo is a matter of laziness and not being innovative enough. But for me, it became a matter of not knowing where and how to start the change.
I have poor understanding of data, analysis, and comparison of alternatives in life.
I gave up my best hope too quickly and too soon.
So, I always remained negative.
Comparison of anything never becomes straightforward, sometimes, it’s confusing, chaotic, and intimidating.
For me, the mental cost of researching and accepting various life alternatives was very high.
I am sure other people might have the same situation.
Conclusion
One of my father’s friends has 7 kids from two marriages, a big house, and is pretty much financially independent.
When I was a second year PhD student, he told me that he did a 4 years job in total in his lifetime under someone else as an employee.
He told me that the job was not made for him.
He told me that during his time on that job he was so negative that he lost all of his hopes because of people, culture, and surroundings.
When I visited his house a few years ago, I saw at least 20 books everywhere in his house.
I saw a book titled “Atomic Habits” by James Clear in his rest room.
I was shocked.
At one point in our conversation he said, “I used my formal academic degree for those 4 years of my life, beside that all of my life I am pretty much dependent on these books.”
“All of my negativity evaporated through these pages not at once but gradually. I knew who I am.”
“I love a big family, many kids, a big house, financial independence, and lots of books everywhere, that’s who I am,” he said.
Remember, being a good positive person begins with you, it’s your good mindset that you have inside you, of course, each one of us have to recognize it.
Yam Timsina, PhD, writes primarily on health basics, scientific progress, social upliftment, and value creation.