The Positive and the Negative

I am, by nature, a stoic, sardonic person. I don’t outwardly exhibit a great deal of emotion (I’m laughing on the inside, true story) but I have always had a knack for presenting myself with a cutting wit, something I think comes from also being a naturally intelligent person.

Typically, the more sarcasm I throw your way – true sarcasm, not mocking or naysaying; those things are different – the more I respect you. Or not, which makes association with me a challenge. I either love you or I am completely indifferent to you and, in either case, you are liable to be on the receiving end of my deadpan humor. Good luck figuring out which one.

I never made a conscious decision to be a more positive person. I can still administer a righteous burn, if the situation warrants it, but for the most part, I don’t. I keep my salt to myself.

I choose my battles. I approach every potentially hostile situation by first asking, “How will engaging benefit me?”

If I can’t, immediately, think of an answer, I sit back and watch the carnage as someone else invariably engages without having asked themselves the same question.

But…I try not to complain about things that aren’t worth complaining about.

I try to empathize with other people and see the world from their perspective. Even when I think their perspective is absurd. An opinion I am quite likely to share, if I think anything will be accomplished by doing so.

I try not to raise my blood pressure over other people’s decisions if their decisions don’t directly and/or negatively affect me.

I try to put these actions onto other people. I offer suggestions like “Maybe if you look at it from this angle…” or ,“I just don’t understand what the big deal is…” a lot.

Keep in mind that this was never something I decided. I didn’t wake up one morning and say, “Today is the first day of a more positive me.” Or maybe “less negative.”

This is just kind of who I am. I am sarcastic and dry but I am also kind and empathetic and I don’t think those two things are mutually exclusive. I think I prove every day that it is possible to be both, separately and simultaneously.

But I have learned a few things, most of them recently.

First, cynicism is rife in our current global climate and it is definitely not the same as sarcasm. Sometimes, people who think they are being sarcastic (see also: dry humor) are actually just being cruel. Or, at the very least, negative.

Not everyone, though.

Please don’t send hate mail saying you are not a cruel person, how could I say that when I don’t even know you, followed by extraneous punctuation, possibly typed using an extraneous number of capital letters.

Sarcasm is absolutely a finely tuned skill and while not everyone masters it, more people don’t realize they haven’t mastered it. They confuse condescension and patronization with an intelligent use of satirical wit.

The second thing I have figured out is negativity seems to be the default setting for a lot of people. And negativity goes hand in hand with heightened stress levels and heightened blood pressure. When you are constantly looking for fault in something – or someone – you miss out on good things.

I work in a tipped industry. Maybe because I understand that tipping is a reward rather than a requirement, that it is my employer’s job to pay my wages, not my customers’, I roll my eyes when someone neglects tipping me at the end of the service. I tend to throw a little shade when I think their tip was more of an insult than leaving without one (see also: anything less than 10%, especially when you verbally expressed above average satisfaction with the quality of service you received).

But then, I move on. I don’t let that one person ruin the rest of my day.

Admittedl,y when there are a string of them in a row, I can’t help but let the annoyance settle in. But one in a full day is not worth raising my blood pressure over. And it’s definitely not worth letting it overshadow someone who really did show their appreciation through both, or either, verbal comment or a monetary reward.

I couldn’t tell you if I am in the minority or majority. I can tell you that some people in tipped service jobs have chosen to accept these monetary slights as an affront to them as human beings and use the wide world of the web to demand validation that the non-tipper was, in fact, the one at fault.

I really don’t see the point of alerting 9Gag every time someone elects not to leave me a tip.

Something else I have learned by being a positive person in an increasingly negative world, is that people – like me – who enjoy being social, who enjoy the company of other people, who do not believe that their lives would be better without all those pesky other humans…people like me are an anomaly. We are the exception rather than the rule.

Or maybe I just feel that way because I am also learning that I am surrounded by people who claim to hate other people. In droves. And I am surrounded by negative influences.

I am not going to say, “When you are positive, positive things happen.”

I have been caught in my fair share – maybe more than my fair share – of bad luck and karmic sabotage. But I definitely believe the opposite.

I feel like, based on my observations, that negativity begets negativity. If you approach every situation from the “I hate this, this is stupid” perspective, that’s all it will ever be. For example, a staff meeting at your job. I shrug it off as, first, an hour of free money, getting paid without having to do any real work, and second, as part of the job, just like any other part of the job. The only thing to be accomplished by complaining about it is complaining.

No one is going to say, “You know what, Nancy hates our monthly staff meeting so let’s just not do them anymore.”

So, why complain about it? If you approach every staff meeting as a burden and annoyance, it will never be anything else to you. If you allow one guy who refused to leave you a tip to bring down your attitude for the rest of the day, it’s very possible that no one else will think you deserve tips either.

I’m not saying acquiesce. I’m saying choose your battles. Engage in battles where there is at least a 50/50 chance you may come out victorious and avoid battles where there will never be a winner (which is why I have, largely, stopped engaging in political arguments). There will always be battles where no one will ever win, no one will ever lose, you will just dance in circles until one of you dies of a heart attack from undue stress.

Avoid those.