Positive/Negative

Everything can be positive

Hello friends. How is that “getting back to routine thing” going? Come on, let’s get to work, we have a beautiful country to rock on. Without forgetting the enjoying part. When it’s time to leave work and the “after-work” drinks, the still enjoyable terraces or the weekend toasts, we will practice going out to leisure, but with a little critical eye. And I don’t mean just to criticize the performance of those who serve us, but also to learn to observe ourselves. Open your ears and your heart because this message is absolutely for everyone!

Reality is a perception

And perception is subjective. We all interpret life and what happens in it passing it through our own filters, our beliefs, our way of seeing things. This is completely natural and it’s good, that’s the way it should be because that’s where the learning is.

Putting ourselves in situation

Let’s imagine that we arrived at a terrace under the trees, one day of September at sundown. Naturally, we want something refreshing. We are seduced by the shade, we sit down and enjoy ourselves! Now, regardless of what happens outside, people can be in “positive mode” or “negative mode” depending on how the day, the week or life has gone. We tend to see and judge everything that happens from that perspective, and the most fun is that those perceptions -of apparently separated things that are apparently happening outside of us-, and the event itself, do not necessarily have to coincide!

Testing the chip: negative or positive?

Divide a table of 4 friends, two of them are in the positive pole, and the other two in the negative one. The waiter comes and does his thing. So, while for the negative side of the table this man is rude and unfriendly, needs a lot of time to appear and on top of that, the beers he brings are not as cold as they should be …

… for the other side, the one on the positive chip of life, the time goes by gently while they enjoy the breeze under the trees, the waiter is a pretty cool guy who is a little busy because he has another 14 tables to attend, but he manages quite well, and the children at the next table are not annoying with their cries but, they bring joy to the environment.

Activating the “enjoy mode”

Be careful to expose yourself and enter in this kind negative dynamics of criticizing, complaining and saying bad words, because they are dangerously contagious.

After falling into this kind of unconscious and invisible traps, what would happen when leaving that wonderful terrace, is that you would walk the rest of the evening complaining and ranting against the service, the place, the price, and so you would find more and more reasons for which complaint. What was going to be a good time, ends up becoming a nightmare, and the funny thing is that, if there was someone there who managed not to be swallowed by this dynamic, he would be quietly hallucinating in like: “but all that really hasn’t happened!!”

“In MY reality it has not happened, I perceived the waiter quite correct, even funny with the children tables”.

Another example

In the case of, for example, a pizza for which you have waited 30 minutes hungry, if by the time it finally arrives, you have been gathering tension and wanting to complain, most likely it will feel like a stone in your tummy. And then you would say: “Oh, this pizza was really bad!” When the previous week, maybe you had gone to the same place and ordered the same pizza (that’s why you wanted to repeat it because you liked it) and since then you were more relaxed it had seemed delicious and it had made you feel great, and it was the same pizza!! While the latest version of yourself is complaining like “it is unacceptable that they take so long to bake a simple pizza”, last week was more like: “Gosh this is delicious, it has been worth the wait”. And it’s the same person!!

Let’s see, what’s going on here?!

How is it possible, if we are talking about the same terrace, the same pizzeria, the same chef, the same good raw materials and the same person? The answer lies in subjective perception. It goes through how you are at that moment, how you feel, what are the emotions that fill you while you are there and the color of the glasses with which you are interpreting reality. With our attitude, we attract compatible experiences with who we are BEING.

The key is in how you take it

Everything is relative, time is relative, the perception of reality is relative, the way in which we interpret the messages of our interlocutors (both verbal and gestural) is relative. Even the taste of food is relative! There are things that from an objective reality can be more categorical, I don’t deny that there are many establishments that need to improve in multiple aspects, for that we are working and we are going to achieve it. But still, all those things that we look with our eyes will be tremendously influenced by our perception, by our psychology.

You, in what role do you want to be?

Even in front of the most unfriendly waiter in the world, you can CHOOSE to spend the rest of the afternoon ranting and embittering yourself, or relativizing to the maximum and simply changing the subject and acting from a more pleasant place. Now, how is the quality of the time you want to share with those you appreciate?

Also, if you keep practicing staying at the positive pole, your experiences will become more and more pleasant and friendly, offering you more and more opportunities to find more and more good things in your life.

Thanks for reading my friends. Till the next post.

Xavi Iglesias

We all do the restaurant and we all do as clients