There are a lot of people nowadays that are disappointed in the world. Every day in the morning/afternoon or evening we can hear these conversations:” Yeah, I was expecting this from him”, “People are never changing”, “Everybody is selfish”.
When we are meeting somebody new, we already expect some bad things from this person: we don’t believe in goodness of him. We are chasing his bad sides like crazy and then when we are finding something, we are happily yelling to the world: “I was expecting it from him! It was so predictable!” We are getting some sort of satisfaction to know that we are right. It gives us some protection from the surroundings: it is much easier to find bad things, forget about optimism and treat the world with sarcasm.
But have you ever thought what will happen if we stop believe in each other? In what world we will be living if from the very beginning we will make up our mind to the negative wave? Probably all the sins of the mankind will be developing and we will end up in the dark horror-movie world where the miracles are not happening, just because nobody believes in them.
As a person that is blindly believing in other people, no matter what, I was really interested in Pollyanna principle. One good friend of mine has told me about it. It is also called positivity bias and got “Pollyanna” name in honor of the book of Eleanor Porter. The book was describing a girl who plays the “glad game”—trying to find something to be glad about in every situation. It shows how small girl with sincere and sunny personality can change the lives of a lot of people just to be positive about everything that is happening around. She was able to find positive sides of anything that she dealt with. The challenge for her was when she got into the car accident and lost the use of her both legs. Then she wasn’t able to find the things she could be glad about and people to whom she had helped came to her and shared the stories how her encouragement helped them in their lives. And she started being thankful that she at least still had her legs.
This story can be the great philosophy for life if you start using it. Of course now a lot of people will say with sarcasm: ” Lydia, it is just a book! it is not real!” But i can surely answer that you just have never tried to use Pollyanna principle. What we are usually doing when we are facing some shit situation? We just starting blaming everybody and everything around, getting frustrated. In worse cases we are going and getting drunk, believing that alcohol will be our savior from the problems and negativity in our life. But have you tried to smile to all troubles’ face? Have you ever tried to find good things in the worst cases? Have you tried not to be disappointed and just still maintain positive attitude to the world?
Yes, I know that its hard. Trust me as a person who uses (at least trying to use) this principle in life. Sometimes you cant see the exit from the dark. You think that everybody is against you. You are alone, you are lost, you are not seeing the light anywhere. But the most difficult thing is just to make a step from darkness: to find this tiny light inside of you and try to spread it to everything that its happening.
And just imagine: you will find it. And you will help a person that is nearby. This person will become happier and spread this happiness to another one. It will be chain reaction;) How do you think our world will become better? For sure, yes! Because the change is all the time happening from the one person: somebody should start it.
Now stand up, go to the mirror and smile. Feel the happiness in your veins. Say to yourself that you will deal with everything and you are believing in happiness. Be positive!
And wait for the miracles to happen:)