Negative Thinking Is Actually Very Good For You

To start with the first step, thinking negatively allows us to accept that something isn’t working and something needs to change, like Bill Gates did.

Photo by Francisco Moreno on Unsplash

I’ve been told that I’m a very positive person. I had a superior tell me that she was constantly impressed by my continuously positive presence at work. Friends say that they’re motivated and even surprised by my ability to keep going and stay positive despite my struggles.

Every time someone tells me that, however, I get surprised. In my mind, I am not a positive person. I don’t say “look on the bright side” as a platitude all too often or echo other positive sentiments. I am actually very negative in my thinking. I take everything I perceive as negative and process it. I don’t choose to “be positive” or “look on the bright side.”

I am not saying this as a realist or a pragmatist, because I am hopeful for the future even when there is no reason to be hopeful. I have concluded that people have started calling me positive because of my ability to not give up despite adversity, to see adversity as a means of growing as a person and improving a craft, moving a foot forward when I absolutely don’t feel like it.