Positive Thinking
Describe one positive change you have made in your life.
I have to admit that the positive thinking of the title is very much comparative! As people who know me will attest, the idea of me and positivity really doesn’t go together. I have generally got a negative view of human nature, a negative view of my own abilities and achievements and a negative view of the ebbs and flows of life. It comes from an upbringing where inside and outside the house negativity was the default setting. Over the last few years this had got worse and when I decided that I was going to finish full time work I realised that this had to change. I couldn’t go into a completely new stage of life expecting things to get worse. That would defeat the whole object of the early semi-retirement because I would have been subjecting myself to a narrowed approach to life which would have ended up making me miserable. So, I decided to look for new things to do, new approaches to take and new skills to develop. Am I finding each day a new and wonderful experience? No, I am not 😂😂! Am I looking forward to the future with more optimism? Generally yes. I have given regular updates on life after full time work on this blog and the reflection on my month just gone has been very useful in pinpointing areas that are improving and those that still need to improve. I am a work in progress and I always will be, but I feel like that progress is better now than it has been for many years in terms of my attitude to life.
That was the long answer. The short answer is that the most positive change I ever made was to marry Janet 35 years ago. Everything good in my life has come from that decision and I will never stop being grateful even if I don’t always express it in my approach to life!
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David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 
I generally think of myself as a positive person, though orhers have certainly been known to disagree. I realised that this is because some tend to want harmony at all times and can view anything that could potentially undo that (e.g speaking ones mind on occassion or just being direct) as exhibiting a kind of “negative” behaviour. I have noticed that people who I would evaluate as less positive can just sort of pretend they are perhaps more positive than they are by simply acting with more tact and diplomacy. That’s not a bad thing – am certainly not judging. I do sometimes wonder, however, how they recognise a kind of unwritten code which I have had to learn or which seems to have boundaries which have shifted. Part of this may be gender and class (and perhaps also now age). In any case, I’d also classify myself as a work in progress. Not in terms of being positive, but certainly in terms of presenting as such. We’re all a work in progress I think – that’s the positive way of looking at it anyway.
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It’s interesting that we talk about ‘toxic positivity’ these days, although the adding of the word toxic to anything you don’t like is, I think, lazy shorthand. However, that definitely applied to ‘the broom cupboard’ when the occupant deigned to pay us a visit! I remember the discussions in the staffroom could get fairly heated especially if you or Orlando ‘went off on one’ 🤣🤣! However, they were never negative discussions because you knew that they had respect underpinning them. The powers that be don’t understand that because their ‘friendly’ and ‘positive’ behaviour comes from a place of condescension at best and disdain at worst. Give me robust and respectful any day.
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Possibly but I think it is more just wanting harmony. I wouldn’t want to characterise it as condescensions as I feel that would not be positive.😂
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You are quite right 😂😂 However I prefer my positivity and negativity to at least be genuine!
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