Every time you create something, it makes a positive change.
Every time you share a new idea with at least one person, that creates a positive change too.
And every conversation, every group gathering, every hangout, every project, report, blog post, tweet, journal entry, game, cooked meal, video chat, jigsaw puzzle, and inspirational meme makes a positive change too, because you’ve created something that didn’t exist before.
Now, think about this:
Every time you criticize someone else’s work, that’s a negative change, because you’re breaking down something that already exists.
Every time you insult someone, that’s a negative change too, because it reduces that person’s ability to function and create things of their own.
And every time you find fault with an idea, that’s also a negative change, because you’re making that idea look bad to people who could potentially be drawn in and excited by it.
Break Life Down Into Positive Creation and Negative Destruction
What I just wrote is an overgeneralization for sure, but it’s important to keep in mind.
When improv comedians create a scene together on the fly, they use what are called offers to move the show along. One actor comes out and announces something: that they’ve lost their glasses, gone through a bad breakup, or want to watch the latest crime drama.
Then the other actor is supposed to accept the offer and add to the scene, maybe by helping them find their glasses, consoling them over the breakup, or turning on the TV. This creates something positive, and builds a bigger scene out of something small.
BUT, if the actor doesn’t know what they’re doing, they might block the offer, which means they might tell the first actor that their lost glasses are on their face, ignore the breakup, or say that crime dramas are stupid. This creates a negative effect by imploding the other person’s idea.
Positive changes move life forward, while negative changes break it up.
Embrace Positive Changes Instead of Negative Ones
Don’t be that guy (or girl) who criticizes just for the sake of criticizing—that doesn’t do any good. Rather, when you criticize something, try offering a suggestion for how to make the thing better, or offer another solution the person could try.
If someone makes a mistake, don’t beat them over the head with it—show them a positive change they can make to stop it from happening again.
And if you’re the one who’s made the mistake, use it as an opportunity to grow and make things better.
Finally, there’s a lot of negative politics floating around right now, where one side gets an idea for how to fix a problem and the other side spouts a lot of hot air about how it’ll never work. In these cases, the side spouting the negativity usually doesn’t have a positive idea for how to fix the problem—instead, it’s easier for them to tear up the other side’s idea and make them look bad.
Think about that this next time you have a political argument with someone—or when you’re thinking about how to change your life.