Positive thinking: What the cluck do we know?

I believe in the power of positive thinking. But I can see how some people find it nauseous when they are asked to emulate others and just be more positive. And why thinking happy thoughts can make us look like cows – their udders tickled by the sun.

I used to be a negative person. I smirked every time something went wrong. It gave credibility to tragic perspectives. And then came this burst of positive energy. Along with it – a love for the world like I hadn’t felt before. I had a dramatic change of mind. At least I thought I did.

Except those closest to me swear that I hadn’t changed one bit. And I am just as angry and cynical as I was.

I may have disagreed then. But I can understand their reasoning now. I was on a downward spiral . But nobody else saw it that way. Only I knew that something had to change. I didn’t have solid evidence that things were going to get better. So I had to feel positive about life to feel good about myself.

After all, positive and negative energies are mere coping mechanisms. They don’t reflect on our mindsets as much as they do on our eagerness to take control of our lives.  They are both based on delusions of inadequacies.

When I was negative, it was in self-defense too. It wasn’t as though I tried to slit my wrists every time I felt sad. I just needed to believe that things weren’t going to change. So that I wouldn’t be taken by surprise if it actually doesn’t. I later discovered that bad experiences were learning curves. They weren’t excuses I could use to be lethargic about figuring out what I wanted.

Before I knew what a Grey Junglefowl was, I had heard it cluck on several occasions. It was when I had first started to fall in love with birds. I was going through a lot of changes in my life. Things were looking better than before. But still, the Grey Junglefowl continued to remain elusive for what seemed like forever. I felt disappointed. A little hurt, even. It was as though I had expected it to see the change in me, and show up in front of my camera.

How wrong I was. She only appeared much later in time. By then, I no longer expected birds to celebrate the change in me.

Positive thinking is a hand-mirror. It’s how we choose to look at ourselves. We can’t go around giving our hand mirrors to others, hoping they can see us in a better light.

(Photography – Kodaikanal, Vagamon & Munnar)