The EnvisionaryThe optimists vs pessimist debate might not be as two-sided as we think. Actually, we find that cynics are often optimists under the surface. Here’s why.
There’s Always More Good Than Bad Within Us If We Are Willing To Search For It.
‘The lightness in our life is dependent on the darkness which we are willing to confront’.
We often want to be in the light in life (some even in the spotlight). Yet many of us are afraid of the dark. It’s seen as an uncertain place so we act positive, remain optimistic, and we can even try to avoid negative emotions altogether.
But we can’t fake our reality and sometimes we have to dig deeper into the darkness to understand ourselves and deal with challenges we all may have to face at times.
We may try to avoid those situations but the more we do, the more we fool ourselves into thinking we are fine – that the light is shining bright still. Yet the deeper we dig inside to understand ourselves and ‘face the dark’ the more the true light comes out (not the artificial light we hide behind).
When we bring out natural light from within the more we grow (and glow). Through patience and perspiration we push through resistance.
This isn’t even about particularly difficult situations in life, it’s the same with every action new to us. When we dig deeper we find a way to keep going. Why? Because we all just want to do well in life deep down, but sometimes we seem to be floating through our minds in the dark and only see light externally from our environment which ends up pulling us in different directions.
But our natural internal light can be as bright as we want it to be, we just have to go inside first to turn the light switch on again.
You see it was on as a child but through adulthood our environmental conditioning often dimmed it and over time some of us got left in the dark or became afraid of the dark completely, but within that dark is a lot of potential good waiting there.
Think of it this way. There’s no evil children. We are all born with a need to survive but generally with a hope to thrive.
It might not always turn out that way but we should remember that adults act out based on fears and really all they want is for someone to understand and care, just like a child.
We shouldn’t forget that child-within and we should not be afraid in confronting that dark to bring out our potential.
When it comes to bringing good in the world then think about this:
When you were a child did you have a dream? A lot do. Was it positive? Most likely. Did you want to make your parents or others proud? Did you envision something good from your future? Were you disappointed if that vision didn’t come true or if you felt like a failure?
Most of us, even (and possibly especially) pessimists, really actually want to do something good in life.
Pessimists generally are so as they want to see the world as a better place. It’s often the critics that drive improvement. They seek ways to improve the current problems, and more often that not the ones who end up planting the seeds to change are cynics first.
Things don’t improve if we just stick to that status quo, it often takes someone who is cynical to come along and say ‘we can do this better’. They are willing to go deeper to see the problems, to tackle them, and to develop a vision to put them in place. They often emerge an optimist after they’ve pushed through the resistance. Optimists, of course, want to feel good and see things improve too.
People who fight in relationships don’t do so because they hate each other, they are just frustrated or afraid that the person they love is struggling or they are – they ideally want to be better for each other. Parents might seem strict when they send kids to their schools expecting top grades with judgement, but they do so because they want their kids to be safe and successful in life (and possibly also because they felt like they were not capable parents at providing that positivity, but not because they didn’t want to).
There’s of course a few bad eggs who are beyond repair, but most people who committed crimes did so out of their own fears or frustrations. It doesn’t justify their crimes, but it’s wrong to assume they must just be evil people – they may have had very turbulent pasts and little encouragement or constant judgement themselves and no guidance or opportunity so didn’t know what else to do.
It might be that society (which is where the collective fear manifests into something far more difficult to control) painted people out to be failures before giving them a chance, or set model citizen standards that just actually don’t fit most people.
As individuals we all need to survive, so people can do drastic things at times, but individually they are most likely good people on the inside (even if buried deep deep within).
If you give someone a compliment, they might be a bit defensive over it if they aren’t used to it or suspect fakeness, but underneath they will like it.
People want to feel good deep down, it’s why we have fear protectors – not to be afraid but to keep us safe. Yet these same protectors can also create stresses that expose themselves in ways we otherwise don’t know how to handle when we feel threatened.
We might want to appear strong on the outside, we may want to fit in to build up our survival chances, and we may go along with biases to do that, but underneath most humans just want to be loved.
We may find we can express love outwardly to others as a means of seeking compliments or gain validation back. We may also scratch each others back to get ours scratched in return, often subconsciously to us, but we do so because underneath we know goodness prevails.
So when people find they can love themselves inside, all the societal and environmental biases, as well as our internal protectors become less impacting on our psyche, and it releases a potential within us to grow beyond what any evil can grow to.
Yet to get there they have to face the dark and look deeper inside to confront those biases or fears first. Then switch on the light inside and you’ll find there’s a lot of love waiting at the core. There’s a lot of light in that darkness.