We live in a messed up world that is full of turmoil. Turn on the news and often times it’s chock full of stories about school shootings, war atrocities, social injustices, and whichever presidential scandal is hot this week. It’s easy to let it bring you down. It’s easy to let the weight of the world rest fully on your shoulders and to take in all the negativity around you and send it back into the world with full force.

I was a cynic once. I knew it, and honestly I loved it.

“Everything’s the worst. Deal with it.”

That’s what I always used to tell myself. It was easy to just instantly dismiss everything when I saw the world as a place that was full of nothing but things that were trying to bring me down. “No” was my favorite word for a very long time. I was rude and inconsiderate. I didn’t care whose feelings I hurt because mine were always hurt, so they can join the damn club, right? I lived in a grey world.

And it was lonely there. What I didn’t understand was how my negativity was affecting the world around me.

It was like I was Eeyore but the storm cloud didn’t just rest above my head, it filled the entire room I was in. If I was having a bad day, I was damn sure everyone else would have one too.

I, like so many other kids my age, put myself in that situation. I blamed the world, but it wasn’t the world, it was me. I let the world get to me, and I let myself become a person that let his cynicism leak out into the world. It’s a terrible trait that so many Millennials seem to have. Why do we block out people? I know it’s not what we want, but it seems that people idealize this isolationist attitude. I have myself, who else do I need, right?

That attitude is not inherently bad. In fact, it’s important to be able to rely on yourself and to feel secure based off yourself alone and not outside forces. But shutting yourself off from the world is dangerous. Living in your head is dangerous. You will not grow, you will only regress.

I’ve grown a lot since my cynic years. I’ve opened my mind greatly, and I wake up every day determined to spread positivity in the best way I can. I am by no means perfect, and I’m not saying I have this whole life thing figured out (anyone who says they do is lying). However, when I began to open myself up to positivity and to strive to spread this attitude my life improved so much. I am constantly growing.

Being positive is so much more than being kind. It’s about saying yes to things, it’s about getting outside your comfort zone, and it’s about supporting others with your positivity so that they can more easily do the same for you and others.

I’m not saying you need to repress any negative thoughts; it’s healthy to acknowledge them. But instead of letting them consume you and seep out to the world, why not do everything in your power to fix them? It’s hard, and it’s an uphill battle. There aren’t really any noticeable benefits right away, so it can get discouraging. If the world is constantly beating you down, what’s the point of getting back up? Well, I don’t really know, honestly. But I’ll know someday, as long as I keep getting back up. If I don’t, I’ll never have the opportunity to know.

There are factors in life that we cannot control; there’s no benefit in letting them destroy us. As long as you consistently strive to spread positivity and keep yourself open to the world instead of closed off and afraid of what’s out there, you will eventually understand why. I’m sure of it.