Everyone is always talking about mindsets. It’s all in the mindset. It’s all about perspective. I believe in this mentality for mindset to a great extent. Your mindset will make or break your reality.

Surprise: that’s also why everyone is always talking about positivity. Be positive. It’s about taking things as they are and filling them with light, so that even those less-than-desirable moments don’t take you down to drag you through the dirt.

If today is going to be a good day, you need to wake up that way. (Sociologically, we call this the self-fulfilling prophecy). Prophesy goodness and goodness will fill even the not-so-good.

Conversely, negativity is a breeding ground for hopelessness— which is a very solid foundation for more negative things. Nothing seems to make human potential and energy self-destruct like negativity does. If we don’t see the goodness or potential in things, how are we going to see it in ourselves? How are we going to turn things around if we call it quits with our own attitude before the rodeo could even begin?

Negativity also creates a very destructive loss of verve for doing things and even for life.

I catch myself failing to be positive all the time, but I try to see the light, because I believe in the gift we’ve been given (existence). Today is the greatest if you make it that way.

Today is all you have.

And the people around me do make a difference in creating this reality. The more positivity I’m surrounded by, the more positive I feel myself becoming. And vice versa. We each have a lot of power in our own mentalities to affect the mindsets of those we spend time with. We are social creatures, and highly, highly influenced. I would much rather influence positivity and light than negativity and darkness. That’s not what I want my contribution to this planet to be.

Now, this isn’t all to say that positivity is even plausible or possible at all times and for all people. Mental state and mental health play an extremely important role. For some of us, the power to fight our brain’s darkness is obstructed by mental illness. The same goes for circumstances, whether they be circumstances we are born into or life events that hit us when we aren’t looking.

Stuff happens that we can’t fix. Stuff happens that tears us up. Stuff happens that perhaps truly does not have a bright side. But getting up after that fall is still largely up to you and that lovely brain of yours.

We really need the positive to help us survive and conquer a lot of what is happening in the world right now. Make positivity cool. Make negativity untrendy.