Can Positivity Be Toxic?

This is for the Editorial Fellowship.

Odds are you have heard phrases like, “it takes fewer muscles to smile than frown”, “Don’t worry, be happy” and others of the same sort. As people we try to look on the bright side of everything, but is there such a thing as too much of a positive outlook?

Photo by Antonino Visalli / Via Unsplash

Now I’m not saying that you need to walk around like Eeyore with your own personal rain cloud but on the contrary the world realistically isn’t all sunshine. To have a mix of good and bad makes things not only more interesting but it also makes certain instances more meaningful and stronger.

I am personally someone who is on the realist or pessimistic view of the world, however from a young age I was always told to “grin and bear it” or “fake it ‘til you make it”. By simply plastering on a smile and seeming as if everything is perfectly fine it would become so. As I have gotten older however, I see that simply smiling your way through everything can do more harm than help at times. By blocking out emotions that can cause problems dealing with them later on. I’m not saying that the grass isn’t greener but the grass realistically can have weeds and brown patches that we need to work on to get back to that beautifully green scenery.

As an adult I have learned that emotions, no matter how little the trigger is, are valid. You are allowed to feel certain ways. Hiding your more vulnerable emotions to keep everything positive and happy won’t make you feel happy. Can you think of a time where you tried to cover things with positivity? How did you feel after the smile wore off? Odds are the feelings were still there.

There is a place for positivity, there is a place to put on a smile, but it is not 24/7. You are valid and deserve to be able to feel the way you are, even if that’s not something you can do with an upbeat attitude. But now I would challenge you, truly think of how you have dealt with a push for positivity in your life. Was there a time when you simply used it as a mask to make others happy? Take the time to see if there are places in your life where you are dealing with forced positivity and instead try to turn that into genuinity.