The importance of negativity in life

Yes. That’s right. I did say negativity is important. It can accomplish many things.

Imagine a daily scenario where we wake up to no challenge, go about the day without any thought, complete it and end the day feeling a little let down and bored. If this continues for some time we must realize a) our life is fine b) others are being nice to us c) we need not worry about anything d) all this is boring!

So being let down and bored is actually a good thing for us…

NOT AT ALL. The psychic energy is at the lowest when situation is too tranquil. Have we not heard of people committing suicide because they had nothing to look forward to and life was boring?

Here is where a certain amount of negativity becomes important.  It can come in many forms

• Psychological negativity is an important one; unfulfilled love, disappointment, anger, envy, disgust, and depression and so on that interactions with others give us.
• Unfulfilled needs and desires are most common for most people; want that bike, would like that necklace, how nice to be able to have dinner there, how about a swanky three bedroom house, great it would be to have that car, what about that tour to Europe…
• Wanting more money to be called our own, with no one making a claim to it; I remember craving this for long number of years
• How about having that job and not this? How about that higher position where we can command and not do somebody’s bidding?
• How about having all this space to myself? Why is it always occupied by so many others?

While tranquility makes us quietly happy and after a while bored, negativity can and does propel us into high energy mode. Here are some interesting examples

• People bring out their best creative pieces of work when in negative situations and living in adversity. Famous persons wrote autobiographies and other books, created world famous paintings, and composed the eternal music and so on. Books were written in prisons, music composed in captivity, paintings drawn in abject poverty.
• People make the negative situations positive by giving themselves challenges to overcome them, work like maniacs and produce great volume of quality work in a short time.
• Negativity helps people to take great risks in moving to a new place, a new job, attempting new work, and in general jumping into the unknown and the unimagined.
• Negative life situations have propelled people into becoming good Samaritans, working for and changing lives of the unfortunate in various ways.
• On a day to day basis, negative interactions help us spruce up our skills, teach us new lessons in life, help us change for the better.
• Negative interactions help also in realization about our behaviour as well as those of others, and moves us to improve ourselves and the way we deal with our relationships.
• Negativity in life keeps us on our toes, makes us alert and observant, and careful in all life situations.
• Negativity enhances self reliance, having low or no expectations from others. In fact negativity helps change ones personality for the better; become more pragmatic, leave envy alone, and develop more patience, goal directed behavior and so on.
• Negative feelings of envy are a great help to improve our physical appearance, skills and increase motivation to do better and bigger things than the one we envy.
• Negativity helps in indirectly keeping our premises clean and spruced up; we scrub that bathroom when angry, clean up the garden when sad, throw away unwanted things in frustration, cook up a delicious meal in depression .  Anger is great for good physical exercise.

How to create negativity where there is none? You may say, are you kidding? Yes, it is possible that many among us do not have much of the medicine of negativity in life and need to create it. Here are some ideas

• Don’t be contented with life. Create challenges for yourself. If the family or the work place are happy ones, you must create that challenge to get that little bit of negativity, disequilibrium, that the famous cognitive psychologist Jean Piaget describes in his world famous cognitive development theory. As an infant and a young child we did create that disequilibrium to grapple with the challenges of the world. Do that again as an adult. It is invigorating.
• Don’t fulfill all those material needs and desires even if you can afford them. Coveting something gives greater pleasure and a chance to look forward to than getting everything we want without any effort. For this, give yourself certain accomplishment to be achieved before you will reward yourself.
• People will say look at someone below you to feel happy. Here I say look at someone above you to challenge yourself further. Set targets which will create motivation and drive, help you acquire new skills and abilities.
• Don’t lie on your laurels. Strive for doing better and better. Such a challenge gives the right kind of motivation and adequate stress to excel.

There could be other ways too. That is left to each ones imagination.

In summary, ‘A negative thing a day keeps us moving towards well earned health and happiness’. Tips for being positive.