I have used many different words to refer to my mom over the years, but negative has never been one of them. I have never met someone that could be more positive than my mom, to the point of being downright annoying at times.
When I asked why she was so positive all the time, my mom responded by asking me what complaining really did for my daily life. She mentioned that the only thing complaining has ever done is made things worse, so she prefers to look on the bright side of things. She takes on the role of motivator in our family, because both my dad and I spend a large amount of time whining about our lives instead of trying to make them better. I asked her the other day how she stayed positive when she was around the two of us, and she said sometimes she fakes it. She admitted that there are days when listening to our problems makes her want to scream, but she knows that we need someone to vent to.
My mom never vents to anyone, and the reason for this is that she really doesn’t have anything to vent about. My mom doesn’t let things get to her like most people do. I worked at the same store as her when I was in high school, and I often witnessed her handling difficult customers with an ease that baffled me. Someone could be incredibly rude to her and my mom would still walk away with a smile on her face. She insists that people who try to bring you down to their own level of negativity aren’t worth your time or energy. This doesn’t mean she avoids them, but she refuses to let negative people get a reaction out of her.
Having a great attitude comes naturally to my mom, and she attracts people to her like a magnet. When she finally convinced me to create a Facebook page for her, my mom added more friends in a week than I did in over a year. She now spends part of her day looking through her friends’ pages and ‘liking’ their status updates. This may seem like a waste of time to some people, but making others feel appreciated is something that my mom takes very seriously. Every card or gift she receives causes my mom to go into a long round of “thank-yous” and “you shouldn’t haves.” My mom believes that people who know you appreciate them are more likely to be positive about life, which makes being around them a more pleasant experience.
The one piece of advice that my mom gave me about staying positive is the use of body language. She believes that if you keep a smile on your face at all times people will be more likely to smile back, which improves your mood, even if you weren’t really happy in the first place. Learning all of these things about my mom makes me wonder how often she really is happy, and how often she fakes it. In the long run it really doesn’t matter, because faking it leads to the real deal.
We can all take an example from my mom and others like her. There is always someone else on Earth that is going through something ten times worse than we are, and instead of feeling bad for ourselves, we should try to create a positive atmosphere that doesn’t allow negative feelings to develop. So the next time you are annoyed by someone you think is overly happy, think about how you can be more like them instead of how crazy you think they are.
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