The Challenge of Positivity
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
Pablo Neruda
I have often said that cultivating a positive attitude is my fulltime job. Optimism doesn’t come naturally to me. During this past year, my doom scrolling has reinforced the fear and anxiety I attempt to control with various strategies. With news of people behaving badly—even criminally—and viruses creating mayhem, maintaining a positive outlook is a challenge.
To the extent that I can control my mood, I know that being dour does little to help anyone. Even pretending to be cheerful is more useful than acting gloomy. Judith Martin, a.k.a. Ms. Manners, once wrote that what the world needs is more fake cheer and less honest crabbiness.
I recently read that smiling when you’re being vaccinated decreases the pain of the shot. (Unfortunately for me, I read this after my second jab, which did hurt.) Apparently, smiling —even when we feel like screaming—helps reduce stress.
Living in Community
Positivity aside, humans mostly want to help. We’re hardwired to live communally and to look after one another. If most of us cared little for each other, we wouldn’t have come this far as a species. As I walk around my neighborhood and navigate busy streets, I notice that most cars stop to allow me cross. I observe that most people wear masks and most people allow me the freedom to walk without being mistreated.
The knowledge that the majority of us behave well does not negate the damage done by broken souls who care little of and for others. How they got to the place of lawlessness and thoughtlessness is complicated. Mental illness, neglect, and drug abuse are some of the culprits. Our society can’t afford to ignore the causes nor the consequences of bad actors, but individually, neither can we afford to focus on those who misbehave or cause harm.
Although evolutionary psychologists and other scientists have found some evidence of a genetic component to altruism vs selfishness, generosity vs. greed, little of our behavior is purely genetically determined. What’s more, cooperation was essential for the human race to have endured. Helping others has allowed us to survive and prosper. Intuitively we realize that the words of civil rights activist Fanny Lou Hamer must be true: “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
Sharing and Caring
Some researchers believe that our natural impulse is to help others, to share and be cooperative. This instinct can be overridden by other messaging but at our core, we feel better when we act better. We can’t fix racism, homelessness, mental health or a variety of other social ills overnight but we can and do help others who need a hand.
Recent attacks against Asian Americans have prompted a buddy system to be established in certain communities. In addition, GoFundMe accounts established for individuals and families who have been victimized have far exceeded goals in many cases. These gestures may not be enough to stop the craziness but generosity in spirit and deed is uplifting.
Perception is Not Reality
Like me, you may have occasionally thought that our society is going to hell in a handbasket. You read or listen to the news and hear reports on social media of criminal behavior all around us. Perhaps you conclude that crime has gotten much worse. In fact, crime statistics reveal a different story.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) track crime rates in the U.S. Both organizations conclude that the U.S. has seen sharp decreases in violent crimes as well as property crimes since the ‘90s. The BJF claims violent crimes have fallen 74%, while FBI statistics say the decline is around 49%. Property claims are also significantly down according to the FBI and the BJS.
So why are our perceptions not in line with the reality? The short answer is: appetites. People find negative news more engaging than positive news. News outlets know that bad news drives readership and viewership so that’s what they feed us.
Of course, the cost of our prurient interest in death and destruction is steep. Anxiety, depression and a host of maladaptive behaviors can result. Buddhist teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche coined the phrase, “real but not true” to explain how our (real) fears shape our beliefs that may be based on faulty data.
These Are the Good Old Days
Barack Obama’s 2017 keynote address at the Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers conference attempted to address the discrepancy between perceptions and reality. In his speech, Obama said, "If you had to choose one moment in history in which to be born, and you didn't know in advance whether you were going to be male or female, which country you were going to be from, what your status was, you'd choose right now."
Yes, we have gross inequities and antiquated gun policies, but advances in health, poverty and a number of other metrics point to the fact that we’re really better off now than we were in previous generations. And that is cause for celebration and for positivity.