Positive Outlook
What can chemical bonds teach us about a positive outlook?
December 2017
When atoms collide, they move to a higher level.
Pessimism resembles the negative behavior of electrons that form chemical bonds. Molecules that are unstable or missing electrons in their outer shell tend to react with other molecules. In the same way, negativity or focusing only on deficiencies can draw you into the exact experiences you would rather avoid. Life may appear as a glass half empty to you, but nature is always filling up its deficiencies.
The law of compensation shows how what is springs from what is not. We over-develop some traits to compensate for a deficiency in others. Like the molecule, negativity leads you to participate in reactions with others, where the collision leads all involved to function at a higher level. Unstable elements with an incomplete shell are always on the lookout for other negative electrons to bond with. Take stock of your outlook because it will inevitably lead you to find what you are searching for.
Like the atom, imagine you have a neutral center with a positive charge that keeps you open to experience and positive in outlook. Far away is an electron shell, swirling with energy ripe for transformation. What you call good or bad in life is just your willingness or unwillingness to meet change. Everything in nature is in a state of becoming and therefore, cannot be classified. Missing the point of how transformative events lead to positive growth can leave a type of reactionary vacancy in your outer shell. One person recognizes how a difficult experience makes them stronger, while another feels victimized.
To remain neutral in outlook, it is important that the negativity you encounter is balanced with a positive outlook. The inherent charge of an atom can inspire an understanding of the charge you bring to any situation. An event can be highly charged when you bring more or less of a sense of balance with you. Like chemical bonding, you collide with others and create reactions because of an imbalance in a state of being transformed.
Be inspired in the way that wonder and uncertainty are a prerequisite for life's evolutionary thrust into the unknown. Even life’s destructive elements play a part in its renewal processes. You may think weeds are bad, although they are how nature regenerates and stabilizes topsoil by pulling subsoil materials to the surface. All of life is structured on the idea of balance and all events have a purpose.
When meeting others, remember that the things you would cultivate for yourself, like acceptance and self-respect, are more easily cultivated when offering it to others. While you always participate in reactions with others, a stable outlook ensures that you leave those you meet in a better condition than how you found them.
Negativity draws you into the type of interaction that always leads you back to balance and stability. Let go of your need to classify experience in terms of all that you have seen before. Let go of judgment to discover the accidental environment where joy is manifesting. Joy is not something you discover on a distant horizon. It is a change in perspective that must first be cultivated within. Nature makes no distinctions and always benefits all of its creatures.
When experience transcends the idea of what you like and dislike,
the beauty and harmony of life will be revealed to you.
Exercise:
Explore the middle ground between two extremes. High cannot be classified without knowing what is low. Hot is meaningless without comparing it to cold. In nature, positive and negative are different faces of the same phenomena. When you can identify the real nature of ‘what is,’ you will see that life is just so. It is merely captured in the momentary snapshots of your perspective. Night evaporates into daylight and cold is energized by the light. Increase and decrease flow like a wave until one becomes the other.