The Problem With Neutrality
Maintaining neutrality over positivity or negativity doesn’t serve you when it comes to choices and decisions.
For years, I have espoused the values of conscious reality creation, mindfulness, and positivity in my Pathwalking philosophy.
When it comes to positivity, however, many quickly jump to toxic positivity. In the simplest of terms, toxic positivity is positivity used to disregard, ignore, and erase negativity at the expense of true awareness.
If the opposite of positivity is negativity – and it is – then between them is neutrality. Recognizing this, many people attempt to maintain neutrality in their doings. This is because they believe remaining neutral is safe.
To be fair, it is. But it is also utterly disempowering.
I believe there are three primary ways to live your life.
- Let life live you. What happens, happens, and you take it as it comes. This is neutrality.
- Curl up in a ball and await death. See the downside of most things, expect the worst, be the victim of life. This is negativity.
- Take life like the bull by the horns. You make choices and decisions about how your life is to be. You act to drive your life. This is positivity.
This is important to take into consideration because it impacts your overall approach to life, the Universe, and everything.
The impact of these life options
When you choose option 1, you are largely deciding not to decide and choosing not to choose. You’re a car in neutral – and you’re only moving with a push or if you happen to be on a hill.
When you chose option 2, you are largely decided to see bad things and be a victim of them. Potential and possibilities elude you because you’re likely looking to justify your beliefs about nothing going right, always struggling, and other negativity. You’re more or less ceding control – by choice – to negative expectations.
When you choose option 3, you are largely deciding to see potential and possibilities and work to live the best life that you can. You are in the driver’s seat and taking what control you can to find and or create your life experience.
Options 2 and 3 are chosen. While I am not personally a fan of option 2 – it’s still a choice over option 1. But we are all empowered to choose – and empowerment is the key.
Remember – neutrality and seeking neither positive nor negative – is disempowering. Why bother when you are making no directional choice? You don’t need to go to one extreme or another – just choose an approach of YES (positivity) or NO (negativity).
Yes, I can empowers. No, I can’t disempowers.
And this is where neutrality is problematic.
Neutrality disempowers
I’m not pulling any punches here – neutrality disempowers you.
To be fair, there are times where making no choice at all and remaining neutral IS a good idea. When two people you care equally about are fighting, it might be best to stay neutral in that fight. Unless you can see clearly where one is right and the other is wrong.
All choices can have consequences. This is one of the reasons I know a lot of people prefer neutrality. No choice, no consequence. But neither are you empowered and taking the control that is yours.
When we stand as a society on the cusp of major upheaval – those who remain neutral in the face of a negative choice become disempowered. That complicity, however, can also put you in a bad place that extends that disempowerment to others.
When the Nazis rose to power in Germany, people ignored the warning signs and were complicit. And then it was too late – and they were disempowered by the fascist government that had control of their nation.
Don’t think that could happen in the USA in 2021? I give you the January 6th Trump-inspired insurrection. Look at all the people who remain neutral and are not speaking up against that insanity – or hitting the polls to vote out its supporters and their efforts to destroy our democracy. Those staying neutral and complicit disempower us all.
Deciding not to decide and choosing not to choose – to remain “neutral” – may also be a cop-out. Letting life live you, for some people, is perfectly fine. And if you are there – more power to you.
But if you desire to choose your life direction – remaining neutral disempowers you. The choice not to choose lacks intent, direction, and purpose. If you’re discontent – but remaining neutral – you’ll stay there until you choose otherwise.
You will experience all three ways to live your life
It’s super easy to be judgmental regarding my three options for living life. But the truth is, along the way – and whatever paths you chose – you will experience them all.
Probably the biggest problem with toxic positivity is its utter disregard of negativity. It puts on blinders and rose-colored glasses as it pretends no negativity can happen. But that’s utterly unrealistic – because negativity not only can happen, it will happen.
People die. Friends leave. Relationships end. Cars break down. Unwanted, negative occurrences are a fact of life. Denying them serves nobody and only disempowers you.
Because of this – shit will happen that will drive you to option 2. You curl up in a ball and wail, moan, and lament the bad and expect that’s all that will ever happen again. It will happen, and you will lose all hope when it does.
However – you can choose to move out of that. Accepting change and moving past the terrible things that happen is part of life. Lessons can be learned to cope better next time and/or avoid there being a next time, if possible.
Likewise, you will be faced with times where you just need a break. So, you let life live you, go by rote and routine, and simply exist neutrally. Again, you can choose when to come out of this state and go with option 3 and take action to live life via choice, decision, and empowerment.
Neutrality is choosing not to choose
Maintaining neutrality over positivity or negativity doesn’t serve you when it comes to choices and decisions for your life.
You have one shot, in that body you occupy, to experience life. You can let life live you, be a victim of it, or chose to live it as fully as possible. While you will experience all these options along the way – the overall choices and decisions belong to you. If you desire to get the most out of this experience – remaining neutral disempowers your ability to do that.
There are going to be times where you feel terrible or feel nothing. That’s part of the human condition. But how long you occupy that place is based on what you choose and decide. When you maintain neutrality towards your own life – you disempower yourself.
I see life as full to overflowing with potential and possibilities. I desire, as such, to make choices and decisions to have the best experiences with it I possibly can. There are numerous paths I can take – and that is something I desire to do. Neutrality doesn’t empower me or anyone to do that. That is the problem with maintaining neutrality.
What choices and decisions are you making between neutrality, positivity, and negativity?
This is the four-hundred and ninety-seventh exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.
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