We Can Be Too Positive

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I was mulling over how to write about smarter spending, I came to think about “positivity” and how just looking at the bright side makes us blind. So we are talking about this today.

“It will all work out”, “Just pray, and it will all be well”, “You can smile through your troubles”

These are all well and good. Some people need to be more positive, but you can be too positive.

Image by Kari Shea from Pixabay

The first iteration of this blog was from my college years, the name of the blog was: “the lighter/darker side”. It was from a song by Christian Bautista whose message was about accepting someone for the good and bad, the lighter side — and the darker side.

This came to shape my world view for years to come, I tried to remind myself that it's not all bad, sometimes things are good. But people like to only look at the lighter side, it's a typical Filipino trait.

I have come to learn over the years that this is silly.

If you have a gunshot wound, would it help to think positive? If you are neck deep in debt, would think positive pay of your debts? Of course not. The problem with being too positive, or seeing the lighter-side, is, as I say: makes you blind. Much like staring into the sun.


In this episode of American Dad, Stan learns to chill out and not worry. But as he learns, being too carefree makes one oblivious to the dangers they will be facing. We have to worry, we have to see the bad things, because fear protects us. Fear tells us that something is wrong, and that we should fix this.

I was driving with another colleague one time, and he was going through the country roads at 80-100 kph and at one hard turn we almost spun out the road and crashed. The whole time I was just thinking the last words I said to my wife, but he was just laughing: “Don't worry my friend, you only live once”. And I found this statement very stupid. He was a father of 3 kids. If we died there all because he was speeding to get our job fast is irresponsible.

I didn't bother commenting on this, but I demanded we swap seats and I drove us to the next client at a safe pace.

Yes, don't dwell on the bad, but ignoring them outright is troublesome.

Problems are meant to be solved, not avoided. We grow from adversity, and facing them is the only way to be better than who we were yesterday.

Okey, I got this out of my system. Tomorrow, let's talk about money again. 

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