Harness the Power of Negativism: Lesson 1

Harness the Power of Negativism
From the Master himself
asingaporeanson

Introduction:

I remembered the period of being unemployed for 8 months in Singapore during the second half of 2008 to 2009. It was one of the most interesting period of my life. In fact this period could be the defining window of my next 5 years or even the rest of my life. It was the only time in my life after childhood where I had no day to day commitments. I had no school to attend, no work to report to, I was not married. I did housework as and when I wanted to, helped out my mum at the stall randomly when I could wake up on time, took long walks alone while my girlfriend and friends were churning money in their respective day jobs. I felt like the world had left me behind and I was the only person left frozen, watching the days and action flashing pass.


Being unemployed for a relatively long period doesn't do favours to anyone's confidence and self esteem. The interesting thing was that I could felt it creeping upon me even though I was conscious about it. It was either getting assassinated while you were digging your nose or standing in the doorway waiting for your murderer. Being aware made little difference. Strangely, despite all these I was happy throughout my unemployment days though I did have times that I worried about my financials and my future. This period of time, however, gave me plenty of inspiration and allowed me to realise life was not as structured as it appeared to me and - we have a choice, every single one of us.


Drop the positive thinking crap

Positive thinking has never been my cup of tea. To me, deluding myself into thinking that things will turn out fine is the procrastination of addressing an issue that requires attention and without given any will simply see yourself encountering the situation again and again even if you get away with it this time round. I am not implying that we can always take action in any situation but at least there is a lesson to be learn each time. Let me give you an example. Any one of you would have experienced this before

"The exams is over and the only thing left to do is to pray."

Fundamentally there is nothing wrong with this because there isn't a single thing you can realistically do to change the results. Not even praying, to be honest - sorry for my religious friends who sometimes read this blog. You are responsible for your own results after all, not God. In fact, if God is Singaporean, he would have studied hard if it was his turn to take his PSLE and he would had probably as much tuition as your son as well. Ok, maybe not as much for after all, he is God.


So if not pray what else can you do? Feel bad about it? What is the point right? 


The point is that, if you felt you did badly in an exam and decided to pray and convinced yourself everything would be alright and there wasn't a point to feel moody about something that wasn't in your hands anymore, you would probably experience this over and over again in your life. If you enjoy this sort of thrill, by all means. Not me. I hate this feeling and after going through these a few times too many, I decided to allow myself to really feel bad about it the way I deserved to.


Feel bad

Forget about the, "I've tried my best and that is the most important thing," or "Winning is not everything, enjoying the process/friendship/the journey is," rubbish. You will know when you have tried your best and you don't need any positive thinking to convince yourself so.


You couldn't be really feeling bad unless you admit you screwed up royally. Wait not for that bad result to confirm you have let yourself down. The longer you wait, the less effective it will be. So the first thing to do is to admit it, then feel bad, really bad, batter yourself into rags so that you will never forget the lesson.


Rebirth, like a phoenix

You beat yourself into the pits to hit the point home, not to turn into a homeless druggie drowning in self pittance everyday. Never forget this. If you think you cannot draw a clear differentiation between the two, you are better off retracting yourself two paragraphs back and pray to God. You are not good enough to be a Student of Negativism, simple as. Else, carry on reading. It is finishing soon, I assure you.


At your nethermost abyss, write a short paragraph to define why you felt bad. Reduce the entire paragraph to a sentence that meant the most to you. Then reduce the sentence to a single word that defines this lesson. With this word, you will never forget the day you did what you did, or fail to do. This will be your Negative Powerword, which you will be using to remind yourself how pathetic you were once. Then it is time to snap out of the blame chamber and change things.


Harness the Power

Never fail to recite the Negative Powerword once a day. You will be sure not to repeat your folly. For the above example, you will be most likely to find a way to change your previous mantra from:


"The exams is over and the only thing left to do is to pray."

to

"The exams is over and the only thing left to do is to play."


Remember, this works for many aspects of life, such as work and relationships, outside this example if you know how to apply the simple little low level spell of the School of Negative Magic.

3 comments: