The Dark Side

Let me preface this by saying that I am not a positive person, but neither am I a negative person. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I am both. I think it’s important to feel that it is completely fine to feel sad or angry when times are difficult, because it is bad for our mental health to try to convince ourselves that everything is OK and that we are only worrying for no reason when everything is not fine at all. If times are difficult, why should we try so hard to be positive?

Society often tells us to smile and try to be positive, usually to make others comfortable. Why is it our responsibility to hide our true feelings and make others comfortable, though? When bad things happen to someone, their family and friends often tell the person to “Stay positive!” “It could be worse.” “You’re thinking too much.” “You’ll get over it.” “Let it go.” These are often expressions mental experts advise never to say to someone who may be experiencing depression. Maybe their situation is not something that will go away if they just “stay positive” or if they just stop thinking about it. People could be experiencing many kinds of difficult situations and they do not want to be okay with that situation, and why shouldn’t they be allowed to feel bad?

What I am saying is, I think we are going about this topic all wrong as a society. What we should do when we’re facing a difficult situation is, more often than not, to not try so hard to “stay positive.” Instead, perhaps we should recognize and admit there is a problem, acknowledge we’re going through a difficult time, react in a way that we deem appropriate to let out our negative feelings, and then try to figure out where to go from there. Trying to hide your negative feelings and just try to stay positive is not a constructive way to spend your energy. If you want to scream, go to the beach or the mountains or karaoke and scream. If you want to cry, let your tears out. If you need to hit something, I highly recommend going to an arcade and playing the taiko drums, or maybe taking up kickboxing or maybe some kind of sport. Only trying to stay positive will not help you overcome the difficult time, it might even make it worse. Overcome the difficult time by facing the problem head on and then try to find ways to improve the situation. You might be going from minus 10 to minus 8 and you’re still not “positive,” but any improvement to the situation is better than no improvement or pretending everything is fine.

A visual representation of how staying positive does not actually help is a comic that has become a viral meme. The comic shows a dog sitting at a table in a room surrounded in flames calmly smiling and telling himself, “This is fine.” He then proceeds to sip from his mug cup as he melts from the heat. Just staying positive will not save him from the dire situation. However, it’s important to note that just panicking would also not solve anything. Overcoming such a situation is not to be positive or negative, but to recognize the existence of both. I believe the balance is perhaps the single most important thing in overcoming difficult times.

It’s all about the yin and yang of life. Learning the balance will help you overcome some of the most trying times. Don’t be so afraid to go to the dark side. Welcome it. However, don’t just stay in there. The other side’s pretty cool too.

Loki

Vocabulary
preface (verb) – to say, do, or write something first
go about (something) (phrasal verb) – to begin to do or deal with something
figure out (phrasal verb) – to understand or solve something
head on (adverb) – directly with determination
meme (noun) – a cultural item in the form of an image, video, phrase, etc., that is spread via the internet and often altered in a creative or humorous way
trying (adjective) – difficult; annoying; irritating