There are times in my life where I am unwell. Honestly, I get depressed. It can be pretty bad at times. At those times I am vulnerable to and guilty of habitually speaking in negative ways. When i get like this, I'm not reasonable. However, I don't think that I am alone in this. Millions of people suffer from depression and depressed thoughts. In America, I have started to notice that many people infuse a great deal of negativity into their speech. We enjoy, maybe relish, commiserating with our friends more than we do the good times. We only complain and ignore all the good that we may be doing in the world. We discount our privileges and think that somehow we are being punished by a cruel and sadistic puppeteer. The truth is that we aren't. But there is power to our words. We are creating a mindset that is negative and pessimistic.
The truth is that the world just happens. There are various people making various plans at any moment and they can and do collide with your world at any given point. But as my mother wisely says, "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." Yes, I called bullshit too when I first heard my mother say it to me around age 10 or so. But as I approach 30 I am starting to understand the world in ways that I never was capable of in my youth. This is one of those cases.
When my mother says, "Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.", what she really is saying is "watch what you speak, because it influences the way you think." What? Doesn't your thought come before your speech? Well, technically, yes. What I'm really referring to is an societal absent-mindedness that causes us to blurt out our complaints rather than our joys. Shit is going to happen to you. There is nothing that you can do about that other than to understand it. However, what you can control of is your reaction to what happens to you.
Much of how we react to things is in our speech. We bitch and moan to our friends, we write in our diaries, we complain to the Internet with our vlog. We do whatever we can to make it known to everyone that we aren't happy. We react in speech and that speech fuels our thoughts. It's like word vomit. Every time you say one thing in anger, you think of a whole new maddening point to add to the pile. So you steam, because you have just added another thing to be indignant about and then you speak it. When you speak it, you just add more fuel.
We have to take the time to make those first words we speak positive. I don't mean this to sound hippie-like (although there's nothing wrong with that, bro), but we really must suppress the urge to speak negatively. We have to break the negative loop and try to find one thing for which to be grateful. And yea, I got to do it. Don't be hateful, be grateful! We have to speak a positive thing in place of the negative thing we are thinking. The more we speak positive things, the easier they will be to find when you something fucked up happens.
Staying positive and speaking positivity isn't about just being a cheerful person who never gets sad. Life is hard and that will never change. However, we are the only ones who can affect the way we react to a situation. Depression creates a cycle of negative thoughts that can result in dangerous measures. In some cases, as with my own, the extent of depression leads to suicidal ideation. Negativity can have severe consequences, but through positive speech we can change the way we think. By changing the way we think, we can save our lives.
The truth is that the world just happens. There are various people making various plans at any moment and they can and do collide with your world at any given point. But as my mother wisely says, "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." Yes, I called bullshit too when I first heard my mother say it to me around age 10 or so. But as I approach 30 I am starting to understand the world in ways that I never was capable of in my youth. This is one of those cases.
When my mother says, "Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.", what she really is saying is "watch what you speak, because it influences the way you think." What? Doesn't your thought come before your speech? Well, technically, yes. What I'm really referring to is an societal absent-mindedness that causes us to blurt out our complaints rather than our joys. Shit is going to happen to you. There is nothing that you can do about that other than to understand it. However, what you can control of is your reaction to what happens to you.
Much of how we react to things is in our speech. We bitch and moan to our friends, we write in our diaries, we complain to the Internet with our vlog. We do whatever we can to make it known to everyone that we aren't happy. We react in speech and that speech fuels our thoughts. It's like word vomit. Every time you say one thing in anger, you think of a whole new maddening point to add to the pile. So you steam, because you have just added another thing to be indignant about and then you speak it. When you speak it, you just add more fuel.
We have to take the time to make those first words we speak positive. I don't mean this to sound hippie-like (although there's nothing wrong with that, bro), but we really must suppress the urge to speak negatively. We have to break the negative loop and try to find one thing for which to be grateful. And yea, I got to do it. Don't be hateful, be grateful! We have to speak a positive thing in place of the negative thing we are thinking. The more we speak positive things, the easier they will be to find when you something fucked up happens.
Staying positive and speaking positivity isn't about just being a cheerful person who never gets sad. Life is hard and that will never change. However, we are the only ones who can affect the way we react to a situation. Depression creates a cycle of negative thoughts that can result in dangerous measures. In some cases, as with my own, the extent of depression leads to suicidal ideation. Negativity can have severe consequences, but through positive speech we can change the way we think. By changing the way we think, we can save our lives.