Positivity: the antidote to perfectionism

For all the talk about positivity, bad news has a bigger impact – and sticks with you longer – than good news.

That’s why it’s important to be even more positive: because the alternative isn’t a whole lot of fun. Trust me, I know. That alternative, or at least one of them, is becoming a perfectionist, living your life in a minefield of hesitance and fear. That minefield has been my life for far too long, and I’m just now realizing why.

It’s no mystery why politicians use negative ads or the news media highlight negative news stories. They work. They attract attention. For all the hand-wringing about attack ads in politics and bloody car crashes on the 6 o’clock news, people still watch them more than the positive ads and feel-good stories they say they want.

It makes sense why they work, too. It’s evolution. Think of yourself as a gazelle at the watering hole. Are you going to be thinking to yourself, “What a nice day it is outside! The tall grass is so wonderfully green and silky! The birds are singing such a lovely song!” Or are you going to be thinking. “There’s a pride of lions around here. Somewhere. And if I don’t pay attention, I’m going to end up as someone’s lunch meat.”

Right. This is why political ads aren’t just negative, they’re scary. The scarier the better, to appeal to your internal gazelle. Hordes of immigrants are massing at the border, planning a full-scale invasion! If Goldwater’s elected, he’ll get us into a nuclear war with the Soviets (cue video of H-bomb exploding)! Dukakis let a convicted murderer out on furlough! They’ll take away your guns! Your health care! Your religious freedom!

On and on it goes. Whether there’s truth to any of this is beside the point. The point is what’s being emphasized – the negative – and why.

The fairness factor

All this fear and negativity will drive you crazy. So, as a would-be antidote, we came up with the concept of fairness. This concept, we tell our children, will insulate us to some extent from the mean ol’ world out there. The police will protect us. The courts will protect us. Our institutions will protect us. And if all else fails, we’ll get justice at the pearly gates or karma will kick in.  

Excuse me for being blunt about this but ... what a crock of bull.

Life ain’t fair. Police corruption is real. So is judicial corruption, gridlock and bias. Our institutions? They’d work a lot better if the people in charge would support them rather than trying to find loopholes and undermine them to further their own agendas. The hereafter may or may not exist, and it’s a bit long to wait for justice even if it does. As to karma, whether you believe in it or not, it has zero to do with protecting people, doling out vengeance or righting wrongs.

Fairness is, in short, a placebo we take to convince ourselves that life isn’t as dangerous as it really is.

(Hey, Provost, you talked about positivity. Hold your horses, I’ll get there. Eventually.)

The ‘perfect’ solution

If we’re paying attention, we realize soon enough that all these external controls meant to guarantee fairness are no guarantee at all. So, we take matters into our own hands by doubling down on something else our parents told us. Call it the Protestant work ethic, the American Dream or pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Whatever you call it, it promises that, if you work hard, you’ll get ahead. If you graduate from college, you’ll get a good job. If you excel, you’ll get rewarded.

It’s automatic.

Pardon me if I repeat myself, but ... what a crock of bull!

Hard work can facilitate success, but guarantee it? Not in this world. You’re far more likely to lose your job because of the boss wants to pad his bottom line than you are for subpar performance. It’s far easier to lay people off because you want to make more (or lose less) money than it is for “cause,” which can precipitate lawsuits and cost the company even more! Perish the thought! Is it any wonder that some mediocre employees survive cost-cutting while some who excel are led to the unemployment line?

Oh, and if you embarrass the company publicly, it’s even worse. You say it was unintentional? That you’re an otherwise exemplary employee? It doesn’t matter. The minute some segment of the public starts calling for your head, you become the sacrificial lamb du jour. (If you’re lucky enough to have your faux pas featured on Twitter, you’ll probably get death threats, too.) Forgiveness? That’s for patsies. Zero tolerance is the name of the game.

The illusion of control

Still, as soon as you realize that the external “guardians of fairness” – ordinances, karma, the legal system, etc. – don’t work on any consistent basis, your only real option is to buy into the “hard work” approach. At least it offers you the illusion of control. And if you can just avoid making that one catastrophic mistake, then maybe, just maybe, you’ll survive.

If you can just be good enough, maybe you can rise above it all. Sounds a bit egotistical when you put it like that, doesn’t it? And really, even if you were to succeed (hint: you can’t), is that any way to live? Now, you’re not just a gazelle at the watering hole, you’re a deer in the headlights. Welcome to the continual stress and panic of perfectionism.

Truth be told, we don’t live at watering holes anymore. Life is still dangerous, but the dangers are different. Simple fight-or-flight responses don’t work as well in the modern world, where lions are no longer a threat, but stress-related illnesses such as strokes or heart attacks certainly are.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t control everything. You will make mistakes. And even if you lived a “perfect” life (whatever that means) the entire rest of your days, some external factor could bring you down. Even if you made zero mistakes, someone would always be there to accuse you of something you didn’t do, or blame you for their own mistakes and insecurities, because it’s easier than looking at themselves.

You don’t just stop being a perfectionist in one day, though. It’s a learned defense mechanism that you’ve reinforced over several years in your quest to survive. Ironically, if you were to demand this of yourself, you’d be setting the same kind of expectation that made you a perfectionist in the first place!

So, what’s a recovering perfectionist to do? If negative news takes a big bite out of our attention, the best possible course, it seems to me, is to overwhelm it with positivity. With appreciation. With wonder. With creativity. With beauty. This works, really, whether you’re a perfectionist or not. So do the following ideas for perfectionists and those who are around them.

Perfectionism is the placebo. Positivity is the antidote.

Tips for perfectionists

• Let go of the expectation that hard work guarantees success. But don’t stop working hard. Pursue your dreams. Enjoy the process. Savor each moment as a success in and of itself.

• Don’t dwell on past failures or past injustices. Process them, learn from them, then move on.

• Focus on the positive. You don’t live at the watering hole anymore. You can afford to look around at the soft green grass and listen to the birds singing. That’s a great gift.

• Remember that you are not your mistakes. They are not your identity. Don’t personalize them.

• Acknowledge your inherent worth as a unique and gifted individual. Value yourself for who you are, not what you can do!

• Instead of working to avoid mistakes, work to create beauty.

• Embrace your sensitivity. Don’t apologize for it. Instead, make it work for you by creating empathy toward others and an awareness of the world at large.

• Be thankful. Learn to appreciate the good things in life and focus on those. Since bad news makes more of an impact on us, overwhelm it with an avalanche of positivity.

• Don’t expect others to be perfect. Some perfectionists direct their demands outward, but if they’re unrealistic for you, they’re just as unrealistic for others.

• Stop worrying. Start living. Let the chips fall where they may.

Tips for dealing with a perfectionist

• Focus on his or her positive attributes. Perfectionists become so committed to avoiding mistakes, they often define their self-worth based on what they do rather than who they are. Support them in turning that around.

• Avoid nitpicking and micromanaging. Don’t look over their shoulder while they’re working. This only magnifies their fear of failure. Unless something’s important, don’t make a big deal about it.

• Remember that it takes a lot of good words to overcome a few bad ones, so be effusive with your praise and selective with your criticism.

• Keep criticism constructive; present it as an opportunity to improve rather than a condemnation for past behavior.

• Don’t bring up past failures repeatedly. As a perfectionist, the person’s first instinct is to try to “fix” the problem, but since the past can’t be fixed, the person is likely to feel hopeless.

• Don’t criticize the person for being too sensitive or call them names. And avoid making fun of them. Sensitivity isn’t a crime. Encourage them to use it as an asset.

• Don’t project your own frustrations with yourself or unrelated issues onto them. They’re already their own worst critic; making them responsible for more things they can’t control can feel debilitating.

• If they do something nice for you, thank them. Don’t immediately tell them how you think it could have been done better.

• If you disagree on something, don’t be dismissive: Instead of saying the person is wrong, ask how they came to think the way they do. Show an interest and listen to the answer. Even if you still disagree, affirm the other person’s right to self-expression.

If more people listened, players wouldn't have to kneel

What is it that NFL players and others are trying to say when they're kneeling during the national anthem? 

Maybe we should look beyond the debate over the message itself and take a moment to study the body language.

There's been a lot of talk about the fact that some players have chosen not to stand during the anthem, but not much has been written — that I've seen — about the gesture they've chosen to make their point.

Kneeling isn't a gesture of repudiation. You're not flipping the bird or raising your fist. You're not throwing down a gantlet and challenging anyone to a duel. 

Players who kneel before NFL games aren't burning the flag, and they aren'teven turning their back on it. They're kneeling, and that's an important distinction in terms of what they're communicating.

Kneeling is what guys do when they propose marriage. It's what the faithful do when they pray. It's saying, "I have a request to make. Please hear me." Kneeling and bowing your head can indicate sadness or sorrow.

The nature of the gesture itself appears to have been lost in the debate over what players are upset about. Some are protesting racial inequality and police brutality. Others are doubtless upset that the president of the United States has said they should be fired for peacefully expressing their opinions.

Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954.

They're not alone. It might surprise some to learn that Jackie Robinson was among those who refused to stand for the anthem. This is the same Jackie Robinson who broke baseball's color barrier and who received an honorable discharge after serving in the Army during World War II.

Robinson wrote in his 1972 autobiography, I Never Had It Made, "As I write this twenty years later (after his first World Series appearance in 1952), I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world."

If Donald Trump wants the NFL to fire players who don't stand for the anthem, would he also evict Robinson from baseball's Hall of Fame?

DISUNITY UNMASKED

The flag and anthem are supposed to be symbols of unity (this is, after all, the United States of America). I can understand why some might object to those they think are disrupting that unity by choosing not to stand for the anthem.

But I would pose the following question: Are these players really causing disunity, or are they simply unmasking it?

True disunity: Assigning 2nd Lt. Jackie Robinson to an all-black unit of the U.S. Army and forcing him to begin his professional baseball career in the segregated "Negro Leagues."

True disunity: Erecting monuments that celebrate the leaders of a secessionist movement that left more than 600,000 people dead and nearly destroyed the country — all for the sake of preserving another form of disunity: slavery.

True disunity: Waving the Confederate battle flag, war symbol of that secessionist movement, 150-plus years later.

Race aside, slavery aside, how is it acceptable to anyone that an American citizen standing for the national anthem should also display a flag that was carried into battle against men who raised the Stars and Stripes? 

How can anyone defend such a flag of treason and, at the same time, object to someone kneeling and perhaps bowing his head before a sporting event? Someone who doesn't want to fight, but just wants to be heard. And acknowledged. And valued.

That's what this is about. It's not too much to ask. Indeed, it's exactly what our flag is supposed to represent.

Is Twitter's downfall imminent? I sure hope so.

Twitter lost 2 million monthly U.S. users in the latest quarter – 3 percent of its total.

I’m not exactly doing cartwheels over this, primarily because, at my age, attempting such would be downright dangerous. It did, however, make me smile.

There are things you do because you want to, and there are others you do because you have to.

For me, Twitter has always fallen into the second category. I pretty much have to have some presence there because I’m part of the communications business. Journalist. Author. If you’re in either game these days, you need all the exposure you can get.

But Twitter is, to me, what eating my veggies was to my 7-year-old self. It’s something I do while holding my noise to avoid the bitter taste, because I’ve been told, “You must do this because it’s good for you.” Needless to say, that imperative makes it all the more unpalatable.

Veggies have grown on me but, unfortunately, Twitter hasn’t.

I’m not alone in my disdain for Twitter, even among writers and journalists, some of whom have dumped the platform altogether. For these folks, it’s just not worth it:

Last year, a fellow journalist, New York Times deputy Washington editor Jonathan Weisman, quit Twitter because he got sick of dealing with anti-Semitic attacks on the platform. It had become, in his words, “a cesspit of hate.”

Lindy West, an author and columnist, also bowed out, declaring Twitter to be “unusable for anyone but trolls, robots and dictators.” She concluded her piece in The Guardian with the words, “Keep the friends. Ditch the mall.”

CNN’s Aislyn Camerota realized she was “hanging out with people who find satisfaction spewing vitriol, people who spread racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism.”

The medium frames the message

Should we blame the messenger?

As Marshall McLuhan once said, “The medium is the message” (or “mess age,” as he sometimes quipped). I’m not sure I’d go that far, but the medium certainly frames the message, and Twitter’s 140-character format does just that … in a such a way as to discourage people from thinking. Or analyzing. Or conducting any kind of in-depth dialogue.

Why does Twitter attract the kind of people who ultimately alienated Weisman, West and Camerota? Maybe because it encourages hit-and-run attacks rather than reasoned discourse. Sound-bite politics does the same thing – and is, unsurprisingly, dominated by similar attacks. If you don’t like negative campaigning, you probably won’t care for Twitter, either, because Twitter is all about campaigning.

The platform is dominated by celebrities and wannabrities (along with their fans and sycophants), who are there to promote their name or their brand. Donald J. Trump, celebrity turned politician, is the ultimate creature of the nexus between politics and celebrity that Twitter has become.

Trump’s ubiquitous presence on – and reliance upon – Twitter has confirmed my opinions of both: of Trump as a simpleton who’s deluded himself into thinking he can tackle complex policy issues in 140 characters, and of Twitter as the platform that empowers him (and people like him) to do perpetuate such delusions.

High anxiety

This isn’t to say everyone who uses Twitter is a simpleton or a troll. My point is that the platform’s format attracts such folks, and like many others, I’m not comfortable in the kind of environment that creates.

As someone who’s generally unimpressed by celebrity, that doesn’t appeal to me. Besides that, there’s research that indicates using a large number of social media platforms just isn’t good for you. A study published Dec. 10 in Computers in Human Behavior found that people who used the risk of depression and anxiety in those who used the largest number of platforms was more than three times that of people used two or fewer.

That’s the last thing I need. At last count, I was active on Facebook (my primary platform), Instagram, Twitter and my blog. If I were asked to drop one, it would be a no-brainer to eliminate the one that seemed the most superficial, the least user friendly, the least interesting and the most, well, just plain mean.

That would be Twitter, folks. Where anxiety-inducing trolls and bullies are perhaps most prevalent.

Maybe other people are coming to the same conclusion, and perhaps that’s why Twitter’s user base – never remotely close to Facebook’s in the best of times – is starting to shrink. Maybe another part of it is Trump fatigue. Either way, I’m hoping users are sending a message by abandoning ship: It’s long past time for Twitter to change, and fundamentally, or die.