Choosing the good

It’s important to read others’ ruminations because you never know when a fellow blogger writes something that jolts you to an Aha! moment. 🙂

I read the newest blog post of a beautiful friend (whom I haven’t met personally but our interaction here on WP makes us friends) – Reclaiming Childhood. Thank you so much, my dear friend! Your post has prompted me to choose the good life and memories over the bad.

Why do we focus on the less-good or the not-good?

Fine; let me rephrase. Why do we focus on the bad?

Let me first clarify what I mean by “bad”.

• Awful day we’re having
• Terrible cards dealt to us
• Bad part/s of our live
• Horrible memories
• Horrid childhood
• Bad luck
• Misfortune

You get the gist.

I am thinking that perhaps it’s that humility thing. As a child, I was taught to be humble. I was told not to boast. Bragging is an ugly trait. Humility works because the more we show them reasons to feel bad for us, the more sympathy, love, care, concern, etc. we will get.

There is also that crab mentality that I am so familiar with. (Hmm… or is that “with which I am so familiar”?) Oh, in case you missed it, I am Filipino – but South African – so the link to the detailed explanation of crab mentality is the most appropriate one. Wiki has this. Do forgive me for stereotyping (Filipinos, that is). This is not to say that ALL of the country’s nationals uphold the mentality; no! It does exist and it might be more prevalent than we would like it to be.

So, to show success, blessings and the like would provoke jealousy, which inevitably results to pulling back down those on the rise. And no, you don’t have to rub others off the wrong way. Success alone will stimulate jealousy-induced crab mentality. In this case, success is definitely lonely. And dangerous.

Why then would I favor the good? I would rather be the one in need of pity or at least some consolation. Misery loves company, right? The miserable does the pulling down for it doesn’t want to be alone.

I seem to think as well that I grow more from the less pleasant and/or downright atrocious experiences. Misfortune, pain, misery, failure, and the like are such fertile grounds conducive to personal growth. That is, if an unfortunate happening does not kill me. What did Nietzsche say? That which does not kill us makes us stronger!

Or, it could be my [Catholic] guilt. I will surely feel guilty for my good fortune because there are so many out there who are less fortunate than me.

It happens; we focus on our unpleasant life, and victim mentality isn’t the culprit. At least, it isn’t the only one to blame.

Choosing the good and the pleasant

No more of the destructive behavior this year! I said to my dear friend that 2017 is the year we are going to let the good and the pleasant shine. The new way of looking at life, for us, starts now. We will talk about the wonderful and happy moments. We will write about the fun and great stuff. We will let the beauty of life linger and say goodbye to the nasty immediately  after acknowledging its existence. We will see the good in people.

I don’t mean that we will forget the awful past. I don’t mean that we will pretend nothing terrible or bad is happening, if in reality. We will look in the eye everyone and everything in our life and around us, nod our heads at the unpleasant and unfavorable, and swiftly move on from them after the acknowledgement.

Then, we adjust the direction of our senses and focus on the fabulous.

We might just be surprised by this thing called life.