Positivity breeds positivity; negativity breeds negativity.
Which is a statement I choose to remain ignorant of, not because it has no meaning, yet its true definition has been blocked by my stubbornness. My dad likes to repeat it every time, and I have been overcome by my anxiety. And I hope one day I understand truly why.
I know on a surface level that if I could stop circling the same thoughts, something lighter might take place. I know that if I gave space for something good, maybe it would stay. But knowing something and feeling something are two completely different things. Because underneath the surface, there is something heavier that does not just go away when I tell it to.
For a long time, I thought my mind worked like a switch. That one day I would just wake up, decide to think differently, and everything would follow. But I have slowly come to realize that that will never happen. That switch feels more like a locked door, one that I have been standing in front of for a while. And no matter how many times I try to twist the key for it to unlock, it never quite turns in the right direction.
The positivity that my dad reminds me of is present in my life in almost every aspect, through everything that means so much to me. But for most of my life recently, I have succumbed to my spiraling thinking.
But as I continue on each day, I have realized that I’m wasting my time worrying about the present. In retrospect, the small decisions or the grade I got on one test will never make my life less than its worth. Out of all the people who could have been chosen to fulfill the shoes of my parents’ hopes and dreams, I was chosen.
I have not found my reason why I have been blessed by my God above, but what I do know is that my purpose is not to bring negativity into this world. Maybe it is not about fully understanding now, but learning to exist without letting those thoughts take control of every moment. Because if I keep waiting to feel ready, I might miss the life I have already been given. And I do not want to look back one day and realize I never truly lived to my full potential.
So even though I do not know why my dad has found a way to sneak those words into almost every conversation, one day I hope they mean as much to me as they mean to him.
