The best way to become positive is to think positively. I know to many that sounds silly because if it were actually that easy, then a lot of people would just do it.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” – Aristotle
It was definitely difficult to live with myself when I had many negative thoughts controlling my perspective. The challenge was to make sure that I reminded myself that the voice in my head is not truly me. We always try to strive for better and it is very hard to believe that we are not our own enemy.The true enemy is a misinterpreted drive for excellence for not being enough.
Allow me to explain myself…
When I first came to Canada, the first thing I felt was awe for the beautiful country in front of me. It truly was a magnificent view. As the days rolled by, I started to feel lonely not being able to connect to people;I was enrolled in a grade school where I had no one to explain things to me. Despite my parents being there for me, I felt alone because they felt just as alone. This completely shifted my view from “wow this place is amazing!” to “I hate Canada”.
From that day on, my life started to go downhill. I genuinely thought that people were making fun of me for my language barrier, but as I am writing this now… I’ve started to realize that I was the only one that had a problem with it.
Did that help me strive to be better? It sure did, but not in a healthy way. I read a million books and I educated myself in order to feel okay with my language skills. However, this left negative ramifications where I started to think of everything as a negative thing rather than being content with what I had.
Thinking positively is indeed not easy. Otherwise, everyone would be happy! However, thinking positively is how you will train yourself to become more positive. For example, if I had looked at my language barrier as “oh, cool now I get to learn another language!” I would have had a different experience when I was 14 years old. I did not know English well, yet my classmates voted me to be the valedictorian. This proved to me that no one cared about my language barrier and eliminated some of my negative thoughts. It is easy to get caught up in the negativity of the world, but WE MUST PREVAIL.
Train yourself everyday to think positively by painting this picture:
You wake up every morning after a couple hours of sleep, your eyes adjusting to the light peeking through the curtains. You yawn as you stretch awake, getting up, and sliding open the curtains. You’re proud of yourself because you are awake before your alarm goes off, so you tidy up your bed. You look at your room in satisfaction, knowing that everything is clean and in its place. You head down after taking a relaxing shower, prepare breakfast, and eat in peace while playing some soft music. – You may think that this is just a silly morning routine and that you haven’t accomplished much, but you actually have accomplished something in a short amount of time. Your body made sure that you got some sleep, and that you woke up before your alarm. Your room is cleaned, you have showered and eaten breakfast; you made sure that you are the best version of yourself that morning, no matter what rolls down that day.
Remember, morning is not afternoon, and afternoon is not evening. You have many chances to start over again, and let yourself be happy.
To be alive is not only to breathe, to be alive is to feel pain and move past it. – Noor