A Year for Positivity

Quite a few events have occurred in my life over this year, and I’m confident we all could say that. I think the toughest part, perhaps you can agree, is not the events themselves, but the mentality that precedes and ensues each event.

I entered 2020 feeling heavy with the weight the impending graduation, job hunt, and wedding. There were other things, of course. My childhood dog, Angel, was declining in her old age. The sadness of leaving a school filled with wonderful professors, and the eminent understanding that I wouldn’t be learning at the rate I had been anymore.

Over the last three years, the routines and structures that kept my little life aligned helped blur the years. Now, I feel like I’ve never remembered a year more vividly.

1. January was subtly typical as classes began.
2. February took Angel’s life.
3. March cut my sweet goodbyes short and moved me home.
4. April stressed me endlessly with final papers and projects.
5. May was bittersweet, a graduate with no closure but free.
6. June gave me a new little apartment.
7. July pushed me to make serious decisions despite uncertainty.
8. August brought two puppies to my heart.
9. September crushed me with wedding planning and sweetness from friends and family.
10. October gifted lovely weather for a wedding, but the honeymoon was wrecked by COVID.

I don’t know what’s in store for November or December. I’m assuming plenty of uncertainty and good lessons, which is the most optimistic viewpoint I can give it.

With all that’s happened in ten months, my mentality and emotions have not wavered much. If anything, they may appear more like hilly landscape and than a gently declining slope. I’ve been plagued by guilt, sadness, worry, and stress 9 solid months now, and I’m done letting it drag me down.

I believe we’re in a great depression. I’m not speaking of economy, for my knowledge is scarce about the little green bills that run our lives. I’m speaking of mentality.

Everything has changed, like it inevitably does, but it has changed rapidly and vastly. Great things have happened. I’ve never seen more companies aware about the environment than this year; even if it’s false promises and marketing tactics, the well-being of the environment is now a relevant representation in the media. More people have united to root out a vicious problem in America and shove it in all our faces as a raised black fist.

The great events can often be diminished by the horrid, but I want to believe that’s a mentality. I’m not saying that we’ve placed that mentality on ourselves either. I think the media has not been kind to us, and I think it doesn’t take into consideration what is best for our well-being. They only seem to think what is best for their wallets.

It’s hard for us to stay positive amongst the horrid things we hear and see because so many of us, understandably so, have entered this great depression. Everything seems somewhat drearier, angrier, and lonelier. I’ve never felt more love and support in my life than I have this year, yet some part of me wants to say this year was terrible.

How do we defeat this great depression? I’m no psychologist, nor anywhere qualified to give professional help to anyone. But I’m a human like you, with opinions like you, so I can only give you the advice I’ve given myself.

Self-worth is a precious tool, and it takes time to harden into a shield instead of a pillow. Everyone has opinions, but no one will truly know who you are. Don’t allow people who will never walk in your body and soul make decisions for you about who you are. Once you’ve built a foundation of positivity from that confident self-love, nothing can tear you down.

It’s funny to think about it, but we often allow people to define ourselves for us. We like to say someone’s viewpoint of something made us change, but we chose to take those words or actions and let them produce an outcome in our lives. We let it happen, especially without our shield of self-worth.

You have the power to control your life. You can let things go. You can keep progressing. When you do those things, you can face the guilt, the heartache, the stress, the mistakes, and the hardships; more importantly, you can face those things and create positive outcomes from them. Turn them into lessons of the past. Not an overbearing lesson that’ll weigh you down and make you feel low about yourself. With self-worth, it’ll be a lesson that strengthens who you are now.

And like I said, it takes time. Don’t be hard on yourself that you can’t do all of that today or even tomorrow or next week. I’m still trying to figure it out myself, but I know I want to be happy. I know that.

So we must first try to know ourselves, trust ourselves, and love ourselves. Good things will follow.