Complex Numbers

The Dark Side

I put up with reading articles like this one only so I can rag on them.

     If You Want To Be Truly Free And Happy, You Must Banish These 4 Thoughts  
Nothing good will happen to you if you're negative all the time.

And already I'm negative about it.

Are you clinging to something that is not serving you?

My cats, for some reason, refuse to serve me; they insist that the other way around is the natural order of things.

Do you feel doubt? Failure? Depressed?

Are you about to tell me that I can think my way out of clinical depression?

It’s time to let go of negativity and pain and accept life as it is.

Ha, ha, very funny.

...oh, wait. You're serious.

We encounter numerous toxic people every day who deliver subtle negative messages and instill negative ideas constantly.

And so we come to the root of why they want us to banish the negative and plaster smiles on our faces and pretend everything's sunshine and peaches: being a grump inconveniences other people.

However, in order to cultivate a positive mindset, you need to develop a strong mentality and separate yourself from the general crowd.

Once you do those things, you won't need to cultivate a positive mindset. Life will automatically be less stressful.

By giving more power to negativity, you will send out negative thoughts to the universe and end up attracting and manifesting negative things only.

Ah, yes, the power of magical thinking. Kind of the opposite of "develop a strong mentality" here.

If you let negativity creep into your mind, it will steal all your peace and happiness and put you in a dark pit of suffering.

Follow Master Yoda you must. Heed his words you should. "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

To be clear here, I work to live my life without fear, anger, or hate. If those are the "negative" things they want banished, well, you're never going to banish them entirely, not without giving up everything that's worthwhile in the process. But that doesn't mean you have to let these things control you.

Shift your focus to the positive aspects of life, as there is always a silver lining in even the darkest situations.

Conversely, there's always a dark cloud in even the brightest situations.

Your reality is not based on what others think or say about you.

Neither does it depend on your negative thoughts or self-doubt.

... but you just said that it did, that negative thoughts manifest themselves through the universe's karmic channels or whatever. Which is it? (Answer: neither. Reality includes your thoughts, but is independent of your thoughts. Perception, sure. But not reality.)

So start by letting go of negative perspectives, grudges, jealousy, fear, pain, self-doubt, and toxic relationships that might hold you back.

I could take these one by one, but I have a dentist appointment later this morning, so I have limited time. While I tentatively agree that a lot of those things stunt one's personal growth, a healthy dose of self-doubt is important to keep a person from being too arrogant. And don't get me started on "pain." Assuming that means mental anguish and not physical pain, first, it's not so easy to get past trauma, and second, sometimes you have to wallow in it for a while before you get better.

When you let go of negativity from your past, you will be more mindful and bring your awareness to the present moment and stop worrying about what you cannot control.

I'm all for not worrying about what you can't control, but screw this "present moment" and "mindfulness" bullshit. We're nothing without our pasts, and if we don't concern ourselves with the future, it'll smack us in the faces.

Here are a few proven ways to help you release negativity from your life.

"Proven?" [citation needed]

I won't go into the "few ways." The article is there if you want to draw your own conclusions.

I'm not even saying everything in the article is wrong. As I said above, I'm not a fan of letting anger control me, and I don't live my life in fear. But there's also a hefty dose of airy nonsense and denial of reality, or at least a lack of acknowledgement thereof. Banish anger completely, and there goes one motivation to make positive changes. Banish fear, and you might think it's okay to take that shortcut through Mugger Alley.

Perhaps getting stuck in Pollyanna world is preferable to getting stuck in Eeyore world. But I'd rather not get stuck anywhere.