You can’t be better now if you were never flawed to begin with.

People, in general, don’t like to hear that they’ve made mistakes– obviously, because it’s not a good feeling to admit to oneself that one has.

But I tend to find that for my part, I’d much rather be told about a mistake than to continue making it. Yes, it hurts to be told, and I don’t like facing my own mistakes any better than the next person. It does hurt, and I hate it. But if I do something wrong, I would much rather know about it, because I want to at least try to correct it. Ultimately, I feel that I am hurt far worse by being allowed to continue making the same mistake than by having someone point it out, feel unhappiness and guilt for a bit, and then fix it and no longer be making that mistake.

If I had a dollar for every bad thing I’ve done, I would be living in a much nicer place and probably retiring early. If I had a dollar for every bad habit and perennial mistake that I’ve corrected in my life, I would at least not have trouble scraping together rent. I have something better than a dollar for those things, however; correcting bad habits and trying to work on my flaws is priceless, and I can’t do those things if I’m not aware of them. I’ve done terrible things (like everyone– I’m not putting myself down, here; I’m just being honest.) I don’t want to be those things. I want to be what I am now; I want to be my future, and the better person that I’m going to be.

It seems that a lot of people would rather refuse to face their mistakes, refuse to admit they’d made one, than correct them. I understand this; really I do. When I was young and immature, I did it a lot, because I wanted to be perfect, and if I’d made mistakes I would be less than perfect, and so I wanted to pretend I’d never made any. But I’d like to think I’m more mature than that now. I know that people don’t have to be their pasts. And furthermore, if I go denying that I made a mistake, I’m the only one who thinks I didn’t make that mistake; everyone else still thinks that I did– and that furthermore I’m still making it– and also I look even more foolish for trying to pretend that I didn’t. No, it’s far better that I face the thing, even if it’s painful, and get rid of it. I might have to get really dirty to clean my bathroom, but it will never be a clean place to live if I don’t suck it up and do it.

I can’t say that I’m perfect at this, and I’m sure sometimes I protest that I didn’t make a mistake when I did– because I don’t see yet why I’m mistaken. I don’t want to protest, however. In fact, I suppose I could say that refusing to face my own mistakes is exactly one of those mistakes that I want to stop making. I know I have gotten far better at it than I used to be; whether I’m good at it or not is not for me to say, since the thing about deceiving oneself is that one can’t easily assess whether one is doing it. In the end, however, I do think that if someone shows me that I made a mistake, I will at least consider that it’s possible that I did, whether or not I immediately react with understanding. And at least I no longer protest out of sheer crippling embarrassment, because of wanting to not have done it in the first place. What’s done is done; at least I can face it gracefully.

I value reality quite a lot. I value not being fake, and not pretending to be things that I’m not. I value saying genuine things and only when I really mean them, and I value communicating only what is true. The last thing I want is to deceive myself just to make myself look better to myself– not only is it childish and against my value of sincerity, but I’m sure that if I am really fooling myself, I will not be satisfied; deep down I will know the truth, and I will only ever be defensive and uncomfortable about that. Of course, if I honestly don’t know I’m making a mistake then that’s different from deceiving myself and I really might not be dissatisfied, but that does not mean that I prefer ignorance. I don’t. I prefer being a better person, and that means not just better in the ways that I perceive myself, for my own self-gratification, but better to others as well. I wouldn’t be a very good person if I were only concerned about making myself think I was a good person.

There seem to be some people out there who really only care about whether they can convince themselves that they are good. They think– insofar as one can say they think about it; these things aren’t necessarily conscious; deceiving oneself is more of a subconscious thing– that if they pretend they are right, then they are. It seems like conscious thought would fairly obviously reveal that it isn’t so, but they don’t let it get to the level of conscious thought. They just go right on convincing themselves that they are doing fine and therefore don’t need to question themselves. And because of that, they don’t correct their mistakes; indeed, if someone points out a mistake, they dig in their heels and find a way to justify what they did so that they can convince themselves (and others if possible) that they actually didn’t make a mistake. But these people are missing out on what happens if you do admit you made a mistake: they don’t get to correct the mistake and actually be better. They would rather live in dissonance and illusion; as long as nothing shatters that illusion they just keep it up and refuse to look at what they’re doing. And they patch any holes in it with more illusion. And I want never to be that way, not when I can help it at all. I’m sure that I’m not perfect about it, and I know for a fact that I acted like that sometimes when I was young, but I hope that it is mostly a trait of my immaturity that has passed and is behind me now. I hope that I am now a better person who doesn’t do that anymore.

I don’t like to judge others on what they’ve done in the past, and I wouldn’t want anyone to judge me on what I’ve done in the past. I don’t know which of these statements caused the other, if either did; perhaps they even developed independently. But I know that I would not like to be forever what I was in the past, as if I couldn’t ever shed my mistakes and begin anew; and I wouldn’t want to force anyone else to be chained forever to their past mistakes, either. I want to be able to say that I am a good person even if I wasn’t before. I would always like to be able to say that I am a better person today than I was yesterday. I think most people would like the opportunity to say that of themselves– but if they are too stuck on insisting that they were never a worse person to begin with, they can’t say it.

Deciding to have a bad day

Today was supposed to be a terrible day, I knew ahead of time. I was up far too early to feel well-rested, I’ve spent the whole day in airports, and I have many miles to go before I sleep. When I do arrive at my destination, I’m going to have to put up with a lot of hassle before I can get my stuff home, including swinging by to pick up two cats who will detest the car ride and soil their carriers, and the subsequent cat-bathing that must ensue, probably at 2 AM by that point. I won’t see friends for another month. And this signifies the end of my vacation and the end of my favourite season of the year.

But even though circumstances point to the idea that today is a Very Bad Day, I refuse to accept that conclusion. If I let myself decide ahead of time that I’m going to be miserable today, then I will be. In fact, I will be extra miserable, because on top of all the above misfortune, I will be unhappy about having such a bad day. I can’t avoid the unfortunate circumstances, but I can avoid being unhappy because of a bad day.

To have a bad day, I have to decide that I’m having one. Only I can decide whether my day is going to be awful or not. If I decide that I am going to have a bad day, then I will; but if I decide that I am having a good day, then it will be so.

How can I possibly have a good day when it’s going to be like I described? Because I only described half of it. What I didn’t describe was that I’m going to get home and sleep in my own familiar bed, that I’m going to have access to all of my stuff again, that I’m going to see my cats. I didn’t describe that I travelled vast distances and saw all kinds of people, or that I got to look out the plane window at all the tiny houses below and play the game of imagining what they must look like from the ground. I didn’t describe that I spent the whole day with very little obligation– the only thing I have to do for most of today is make sure I get on both of the planes that I am supposed to get on. It’s not work; my mind is free to wander; I can read or write or listen to music or play video games. All of that stress is unnecessary, since there’s very little that I actually have to do. And I didn’t even begin to describe how good it is to be alive– to be able to see and hear and think and perceive, to be able to wonder about things and search for answers, to stretch my legs after sitting for a while, to breathe air in and out, to listen to my own heartbeat, to drink this unexpectedly delicious strawberry-peach smoothie that I got at the airport. To feel, to think, to know, to be. Even though my back hurts from sitting uncomfortably, that is only one small sensation among a world of wonderful ones. If I weren’t here, if I didn’t exist, if I weren’t so beautifully alive, I wouldn’t be able to experience any of the wonder around me today. How can I call this a bad day? It’s full of the most amazing things. I am lucky to be able to have this experience of living.

All I did here was recognise that there were a lot of good things that I wasn’t paying attention to. I had been only paying attention to the bad things– but of course that’s going to make me unhappy. I try to catch myself when I’m doing that, and pay attention to the good things instead.

Spreading happiness

Hello world!

I hope for this blog to become an expression of positive ideas. I’m a recovering pessimist and cynic; I used to think negative thoughts all the time and was terribly depressed as a result. But I didn’t want to be unhappy, and I was determined to change that. I am feeling much better nowadays, and I find myself thinking: if I’d known a few years ago what I know now, I would have had a much better couple of years.

I want to do what I can to spread positive thoughts and ideas to others, so that they can be happier too. I know that sounds fluffy and Hallmark, but I do think that I have learned some things about how to become more positive. Last year I was desperate to find out how to become more positive, because I was so afraid of sinking back into the worse stages of depression– but I didn’t know how. I thought: of course I don’t try to have negative thoughts; no one wants to be unhappy; but I wasn’t sure how to prevent myself from seeing what I was seeing. I think I understand much better now, although I still have a long way to go; being positive is an ongoing matter, not an achievement that has been completed, and I am always looking for ways to refine it and make it better.

Thus, this journal is for me and for you. For me, as a way of seeking even more ways to be optimistic and pursuing the habit of noticing and writing down happier things. For you, so that I can share with you what I’ve learned about trying to view the world with a positive slant rather than a negative one. I want to help those who would like to become happier, but don’t know how to go about doing it, by suggesting some of the things that helped me– things I wish I had realised in the first place.