Damn, I hardly recognized myself.

            Reflecting on the shift of my mindset from high school to my present years in college from an objective point of view has been a critical component to my endless pursuit in self-improvement, with utmost confidence in the direction of my mindset. But how did I get there in the first place? How did I get to a point to being able to objectively reflect on my actions and change them for the better?

            I certainly wasn’t always like this, and it’d be both arrogant and wrong to even claim that I was. At a time, I was very much unapologetically self-centered, plowing through the cares and concerns of others in order to gain whatever it was I wanted in that particular instance. Back then, there was no objective look to how I was acting, or how could I change for the better. Not in the long term, at the very least.

            I was lucky, in a sense. I had a friend who perhaps was oblivious to my nature due to how well I hid it (or perhaps she did know and accepted me anyway), who’s positivity radiated off me to an infectious level. The interesting thing was that I had absolutely no idea how that was possible at the time; her mindset was a direct contradiction to mine. How could she always be so positive, I asked. Life is miserable.

            What I didn’t realize was that back then I was ascribing to what I today call “The Bitch Mentality.” The bitch mentality is where you consistently complain with no desire, motivation, or initiative to change what you’re complaining about. The world is filled with these kinds of people, and that’s okay to me. It drives me insane, but it’s okay to me; the world needs these people because these people could find something to complain about in even the most positive situations, which helps us, the producers, to resolve these problems and grow closer to a developed society.

            Let’s move forward a little, shall we? So I meet my friend and a few events happen which lead me to desire to make a change. I had to monitor myself so I wouldn’t end up expelled, arrested, or put into a mental penitentiary. So that was the first cause. I realized I had to monitor myself and my emotions to live a fulfilling life. Once I recognized this, I began to do so begrudgingly, as I felt myself forcing myself not to lie and come up with the extravagant lies I used to in high school. This is misery, I thought. I feel like I’m restricting myself to be who I am.

            That’s when it clicked.

            My issue wasn’t that I actually was restricting myself to be who I was. It was my approach—my mindset which told me that I was restricting myself. I was still harboring a negative mindset, which was the source of my misery. Realizing this, I made another change.

            I told myself that I’d begin making micro changes to my very own perception of life. Rather than thinking of how shitty life was, I began to embrace the positive aspects of situations. This wasn’t forced, but this was merely an acknowledgment that there are positive aspects to situations. A conversation with my positive self, if you will. So then, what was left to understand? What pushed me to this objective state?

            The final question I asked myself was which side do I prefer to live in. Now that I acknowledged that there were positives and negatives to every situation, the choice was mine to make about where I wanted to live. I could choose to live in the negative, which I had already identified to be the source of my misery, or I could choose to live positively and feel better overall.

            Mind you, remember adopting a positive mindset is not to be ignorant to the negative. We’ve already acknowledged that there are both good and bad to every situation, which is the mature way to adopt a positive mindset, because then after acknowledging and listening to the negative, we (the positive) could find solutions. There are a few people—close people I know, who believe that a negative mindset brings them closer to realism. They believe optimists are blind and the world is overall negative. This is beyond false. In fact, what this does is desensitize you to the positive aspects of situations.

            Understand that I’m saying my mind was telling me things figuratively so you understand that your mind—that is, the culmination of your beliefs, values, desires, & preferences, is something you can mentally project as something external and reason with it objectively from there. Once you’re able to detach yourself from your beliefs, you’ll find it easier to realize when you’re actually being attacked, versus when your beliefs are being put into question, and in turn will be less likely to grow angry from criticisms of your ideas.

            Now, I’m not here to tell you that being negative is bad. Rather, I am here to affirm that you have a choice in choosing your mindset. You are not your beliefs; you can choose to ascribe to a positive mindset as much as you can the negative. The reason it feels so foreign and unnatural to us is because it isn’t something we’re used to. If you want to live a positive life, you have the choice. If you want to live a negative life, the choice is also yours. Either way, people will be both attracted and repelled from you. From my experience, being in a positive mindset attracts a heck of a lot more quality people and relationships that I’ve wanted.

            What do you choose?