33 days to go...

Being positive is the best I can be.

I relentlessly focus on positives, without effort, but as a matter of my everyday orientation.

However, I found that positive is naturally accompanied by negative in my world. One doesn’t seem to exist without the other being present closeby. Even when full of positive intentions, thoughts, and feelings, I experience the presence of negatives, almost like mirror images. To overcome them is my intent and hope. But is it realistic? Is it possible? Are negatives cloistered to me like shadows to sunlight?

I’m sitting on my beginner’s mind chair, a blue plastic kid’s chair made by Chicco. The evening is giving way to the night. It’s 30 minutes to the witching hour, and I’m typing on my notebook computer placed on top of the glass-top coffee table. The house is quiet; everyone has gone to sleep. I keep an open mind.

I find that living without sadness is impossible. Whether we are adult or child, sadness comes our way. What makes the difference is how we deal with it. For me, sadness is often linked to a sense of failure, of missed opportunity, or from knowing that someone else is hurting.

As the days are passing towards my half century, sadness is a part of my life, where it coexists with great happiness. I reflected deeply on this, and could not see it any other way. It would be good if I could avoid hurting other people. Focusing on the positive helps, but never entirely.

My challenge in moving forward, or in Maxwell’s words in “failing forward”, is to grow in spite of advsersity and through the dark night of sadness. To learn my lessons from life without letting them drag me down. To experience my smallness in life and let go of ego, to let negativity slip out of sight.

Even if a shadow still follows me, it’s still my choice to look at it, stare at it, be burdened by it, or to turn and look to the light on my path.

Photograph: Beginner's mind chair.