Recently, our house and lot was sold and I and my mother had to move to a new place of our own. Naturally, the process has been difficult. It's so tedious to take stock of all the useless crap one has accumulated over the years and figuring out where to put them.
Of course, there's the emotional difficulties to consider. When one lives at a place for all his life, he develops emotional attachments to said place, fond memories and all that. I took several pictures of our old house for posterity and my mother refused to see them because it was too "heartbreaking." I guess it's harder for someone who spent a longer time there. As for me, I'm well into getting over it and I attribute my easy adjustment to the power of negative thinking.
I'm told, constantly, by my mother, family and society to "think positive". I try, I really do. I try really hard but thinking negative just comes natural to me. I know it's very detrimental to be a negative Nancy but it does have its uses. For example, instead of focusing on happy thoughts about our old house such as the open space, the shade of the trees, the picnics I had as a child on our front lawn, etc., I focused on the negative aspects. I thought of how dirty and dusty it was. I thought of how unbearably hot it got during the summer months. I focus on the rusty roofs, the termite infestation and the general dilapidation of the structure. I thought of how far it was to everything. I thought of all the bad things so much that moving to a our new smaller place seemed more and more appealing. Eventually, I couldn't wait to leave the old dump!
Being negative can be made into a positive. Hatred, disgust and loathing are perfectly normal human emotions. All can be useful if channeled to correct thought and action.
Hey, people cope in different ways.
