It’s Bad, But How Bad Is It?
It certainly feels bad, but all is not as it seems.
It’s impossible not to recognize that things are bad in many ways for many people. On a big-picture level, there’s the awfulness of the current state of the Israel/Palestine dispute, the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, a United States Supreme Court that cares more about the religious beliefs of a few over science, not to mention a candidate for President who should be in prison for a lot of super blatant crimes. It’s depressing, frankly.
Then, when you start to dial it in from the big picture to the next level down, it gets no better. While taking a walk today I saw where a neighbor couldn’t be bothered to pick up their dog’s poop, garbage clearly just dropped along the path, and numerous other signs of the growing lack of kindness, compassion, empathy, and (apparently) acceptable rudeness.
It’s easy to let these overwhelm you. Look at the news, social media, and numerous other sources. You and I are utterly bombarded with this idea that it’s all going to shit, the bad is overwhelming everything, and the bad is getting larger and larger.
Greed, control, waste. Abuses of systems, tools, resources, and people. A mental health crisis that’s being ignored because it’s taboo and/or not profitable. It’s all really, really bad. Right?
But then, truly, how bad is it?
Take stock of your life
When you stop looking at the big picture items, the ongoing news of this and that bad thing, how bad is your life? I don’t know you, so I can’t guess or judge how good (or not good) your life is. However, I can presume that if you have a device that you’re reading these words on, as bad as it might be, it could be worse.
Maybe you don’t currently have a job. Perhaps your home isn’t ideal. You might be in some less-than-optimal relationships. However, if you have food, shelter, and people in your life, is it all that bad?
Again, I don’t know you or your life. However, when you look at it from a matter of basic necessities, is your life bad? Do you have food, clothing, shelter? Maybe not, and if that’s the case I hope you can get help. However, if you aren’t homeless, naked, and starving, maybe your life isn’t so bad overall.
Whatever your circumstances may be, odds are that in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that bad. As bad as the outside pictures are, the inside might be far more benign. Your life might be stagnant or in motion, it might be great, just okay, or have issues. Yet when compared to the outside ideas of it all being really bad, is it so bad?
Take stock of your life. Assess who, what, where, how, and why you are. In light of the picture of a world going bad, is your life also that bad?
Keep this in mind – there is always room for improvement. That’s part of life. You grow, evolve, learn, change. What you desire in your 20s tends not to be what you desire in your 40s. That’s normal.
How do you take stock of your life? Employ mindfulness.
Mindfulness shows how bad it is – or not
Mindfulness, in this context, is active conscious awareness. It’s all about being aware, in this present moment, of your inner being.
Becoming mindful is easy. All you need to do is ask and answer, here and now, questions like,
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What are my intentions?
- Is my approach positive or negative?
- What am I doing or not doing?
Each of these questions, answered in the present, informs you about your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self. That lets you connect to your subconscious mind. This lets you get a good look at your values, beliefs, habits, and more. From there, you can make choices and decisions to change anything not suiting you.
What’s more, these questions show where your life is or isn’t bad, and how bad it is – or not. This is, of course, utterly subjective. What you might consider bad I might consider nothing or truly abysmal – and everything in between.
You, and you alone, know what works and doesn’t work for you and your life. That’s because you’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul. I can’t tell you who, what, where, how, or why to be. You can’t tell me, either.
A great many of the outside pictures of the bad of the world are truly bad, yes. However, many are also exaggerated, emphasized from a certain bias, and/or allowed to spread misinformation because it makes the narrative sell things.
The only way you can change anything at all on any level is by starting with yourself.
This is not selfish
You are the only you that there is. You’re one of a kind, unique, worthy, and deserving of living your life how you desire to. It’s not selfish to turn inwards, be mindful, and live your life while bad things are happening in the world.
Planet Earth has over 578 million square miles of space, 8 billion human beings, and a mind-numbing number of insects and other animals. Given these truly vast numbers, the truth of this is that bad things can, will, do, and will always happen. This will always be so.
For every birth, there’s a death. For every firing, a new job is started. With every home being moved into, another is being evacuated due to fire, flood, or other disaster. That’s the way it works. The world is as full of shit as it is of Shinola.
Ergo, focusing on the negativity and bad is just as destructive to your mindset/headspace/psyche self as ignoring it completely. This is where toxic positivity gets it wrong. You can’t ignore the bad. It simply is.
Finding your good, even in the bad, is not selfish. Seeking positivity in the face of negativity is not selfish. It’s a choice. That choice is intent on not letting the negativity of this fear-based society and the bad overwhelm you. This is not selfish.
Yeah, it’s bad. However, is it all that bad for you? Probably not (though it might be). It’s okay if it’s not. You’re not a bad person or a selfish person if your life isn’t so bad.
The more you and I recognize and work with this, the more we can turn the narrative from fear-based to reason-based. That seems like a worthwhile endeavor to me. How about it?
Seeing that it’s bad – but maybe not that bad – isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that bad things can, do, and will happen, you can work with this to focus on your life and do what you can to lessen any bad that’s happening within it. Knowing that you’re not selfish if your life is not bad, even in the face of overwhelming bad things in the world around you, you can use that to help others see the same and shift the way you and those around you approach your lives.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and thirty-fourth (534) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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