Negativity Bias: 8 to 4 or 4 to 8...How do you see life?

Reader,
Recent research shows that younger adults have more tendency toward the negativity bias than older adults, but within the first 2 hours of my day I had evidence contradicting this research. It is one thing to purposefully listen in on someone's conversation with a friend while they have coffee, but to slither your way into their conversation is another.

This morning I found myself awake at 6:30am and decided that as my child was enveloped in slumber it was a good opportunity to read some articles on this idea of negativity bias, a leaning toward negative reactions in response to a particular stimulus, so I gathered my things and slipped in the car and drove off down the street to Starbucks where I settled into a chair with a big fat mug of pumpkin spice latte, hmmmmm....it was the perfect way to start the day. The day continued to get better when within the hour my good friend came through the door to join me for a gab. Then about 10 minutes into our delightful conversation of Psychology junk and mom stuff a woman, appearing to be in her early 60's, sat at the table next to us and joined our conversation. Then she proceeded to take over our conversation for the next 15 minutes if not longer...I have tried to block it out. I feel as though I should wear a sign on my forehead that says, "I'm off duty. Your problems are your problems. Try the person to my right." It got to the point where I just knew she was not going to stop and I was very much looking forward to having a pleasant conversation with my friend, so I decided upon an inductive tactic. "So, Tracy, would you like to run down to the shop down the street with me before I need to shoot home?" I said this with the hopes that Tracy would see what my plan was or she would just agree, instead she said, "What shop?" I just ignored her question and got up to dispose of my dirty dishes and luckily she followed suit and we said our goodbyes to the woman. We promptly went to the bagel place next door and continued our conversation without the redirection of any other agenda from anyone else.

Then I started to think about this incident later in the day. Do I have control of my thoughts or do my thoughts control me? All I could think about while hearing this woman approach the gifts God had given her so negatively was, "Lord, please if this is me just hack me off now!" The sadness of it is that this woman probably rarely gets a break from her thoughts. She does not get to just get up and make a graceful exit to the restaurant next door for relief. How much have we just adopted our unnecessarily negative theories to be the only true way to approach a subject and have become so comfortable in the feeling of being negative that we are unable to recognize the value of being positive? I don't ever want Dominic to feel as though he has a cranky, old mother that he has to put up with because that is the right thing to do. I also don't want Dom to associate me with the word “haggard” at any time within his lifespan.

The Lord tells us to meditate on the things of him and his word day and night. It is not by decreasing the negative reactions that we find relief. Instead it is by increasing our attention to the positive around us that encourages us to look beyond the four fingers in front of our face to where we are given the opportunity to see eight. See eight at every chance you get! Life is hard and stressful and at times just utterly ridiculous...trust me I know...but there is no reason to give up and surrender to the black and white of negativity. Hold strong and fight for vibrant color!

Laura Araujo