The Positivity in the Future

For me personally, positive psychology is not new to me. It always fascinated me in terms of the radical departures it took from the rest of its conventional brothers and sisters. It still stays relevant to the overall family but tries, like the rebellious teenage child to rewrite the family’s genealogy and history. I got my first glimpse of this in 10^th grade, when a special class on positive thinking was held. They charged 100 rupees for this and since it had the terms psychology in it, I immediately applied, not having any direct experience with the subject till then.

The basic premise of the workshop was many group bonding and self-revealing activities. It was my first exposure to such activities as well which have now become an intrinsic part of my life. Thus it has two big signifiers in the workshop to my future life and thus shapes the way I see myself from that day onwards. The workshop was interesting because it capitalised on the one thing teenagers of my age would enjoy – questioning the system. It starts with a small prod to our homework and moves on to questioning the entire institution our education system that our lives are built around. He questioned why we accepted blindly the increasing load of assignments, notebook submissions, tests and so on. He told us how it never gets easier and it breaks you so you can enter the working world as a person ready to be moulded and shaped according to the mould they pick out for you. In fact, the word ‘they’ cropped up a lot, often focusing our attention and sudden frustration towards this external entity, responsible for all our problems. Then he asked us – do you know who or what ‘they’ are?

I, being the smartest member (self-proclaimed) of the class instantly put up my hand and answered based on my limited knowledge of online conspiracies and big gigantic illuminati like cover ups, that it was a higher power that did not care what we did as long as we did it that way. Then he looked at me, sizing me up and mostly pouring through my soul like a librarian through her defaulters’ list, and told me “So what can you do about it? What possibly can be done in your age, with this attitude?” I was waiting for this moment, often preparing for imaginary battles such as this where I would be able to show the joy and wonder that I am. Safe to say – I lost the battle.

It was easy now that you look at it retrospectively. His arguments were more concerned with getting somewhere than resting there itself. But how he defeated me was a lesson well learnt. He took me through the arrogance of my reasoning, how either fighting or simply following this system doesn’t work because it doesn’t benefit anyone else except the system itself. And that’s because – everything we do is a product of an interaction between the system and ourselves. He then showed us a simple activity, one which I follow even today. He told us that the only way to truly embrace ourselves and the possible change that is there is to this madness around us is to talk to our future self. The one that would be remembering this and living up to it. At first, it blew my mind the entire idea. All it takes is a simple conversation that begins with you writing a letter to yourself one month down the line. Then when you get there you instantly connect with the letter and remember who you were supposed to be and contrast it with yourself now. Soon this transformed into a dialogue done once a month where you imagine yourself in ‘n’ number of years and talk to them as if they were there.

The reason this portion really struck me and I decided I needed to mention it is that I did it just yesterday when I realised I was due for a talk I made for myself when I was 17 to me when I would be 20. Through the hypothetical conversation, certain things came up. But certain miracles also happened. I realised I didn’t have to only compare who I am now to who I said I would be then. I could also think about myself then and ponder whether I was not inherently biased in saying this. And in doing so I learnt more about myself through time than lots of other activities. It did something that changed the way I am and the way I was – it was a conceptual time machine across different years allowing myself to beat the system and improve myself, a high price in a pricy but cheap world.