That Damn Week of Positivity...

I am officially one week late on my follow-up post for my week of Extreme Positivity. (And I know you've been checking, because I check my google stats, even when I'm not blogging.) So I'm sorry.

In short, my week of Extreme Positivity was hard and I didn't like it, and I didn't want that to be how I started this blog post.

For a week, I wrote and re-wrote this post, trying to find a positive authentic spin on my positivity challenge. At heart, I want to- no, I live to- inspire. Whether on stage, over coffee with friends, in writing, or on my yoga mat, I find nothing more gratifying than to have fostered a reaction in another human being that reads, You have touched me.

But I have learned that when I try to force that reaction, I come off as arrogant. My audience shuts down. And I feel the one thing I absolutely cannot stand to feel: inauthentic. 

My week of extreme positivity left me, mostly, unchanged and uninspired. Not that I massively failed at it- no, I had my happy thoughts, my mantras, my good actions, and so forth. I did what I had to do. I smiled and heard my happy music and went to yoga and ate beautiful food and so forth. I focused on the good stuff, even as I was sweating through a fever one night and coughing up my rib cage.

But I didn't like it, and I didn't feel that rush of joy I was hoping to feel. There wasn't a major a-ha moment. And I kept lying to people about it. They'd ask me how my week of positivity was going and I'd, say, "Great!" Because what else could I say? I was being positive.

It's not like I learned nothing, though. I made a few discoveries that felt meaningful and changed my behavior:
- Wit is not often positive. My presence on social media, therefore, suffered from this week.
- Avoiding that which will cause a negative thought is not as hard as it seems. Don't drink as much the night before. Don't take the subway during rush hour. Don't let the dishes pile up. Etc.
- It is possible to catch most thoughts, if you set your mind to it, and shift them from complaints to gratitude. I can't believe they've blocked off this road for construction turns into I'm so grateful there are a dozen men and women willing to work outdoors in the cold in order to ensure proper roads for me. 

I wouldn't say it was useless, no. But it felt like a lot of effort with a side of fake. And it felt somewhat robotic. I am a fan of impulses and reactions- it is one of the reasons I mostly fail at enlightenment- so the week felt like being in an awful lot of control. Not my strength, to be honest.

It was, after all, an experiment. And while I like succeeding and I especially like major breakthroughs, I know I cannot force change or growth, and I am better off looking at things for what they are. There is always some benefit for me in setting up something difficult for myself, and there's always a lot to learn from that which I don't like doing, so I can appreciate it in that sense. But, overall, it was harder than I thought it would be, and the pay-off seemed much smaller than the bargain.

I hope this isn't too disappointing or uninspiring. Several people told me they might want to try it themselves, and I do encourage you to do so. People are different, and this may be a much, much better plan for someone else. And I may do it again myself at some point. I am a different person every day, and positivity will have a different effect on me every time I take it on.

My best advice from this is, take it one step at a time. One thought, one breath, one moment. Positivity, I found, is most comfortable in the present.