Another factor when it comes to this prison of positivity is the idea of inflation.
So just like the idea in economics, if there’s more money floating around, prices will tend to be higher, because each dollar will be less significant.
If you imagine there’s only one million dollars in the entire world, I mean, every dollar would be this incredibly valuable thing.
But if we have trillions and quadrillions and quintillions of dollars, as you see in cases of hyperinflation, well, each of those dollars has almost no value, and so you need to multiply it into the quadrillions or whatever in order to be able to buy anything valuable.
And similarly, I think we can take this idea to statements, things that we hear, things that we believe, ideas.
And we can see this very clearly when it comes to the positive mindset.
So if you imagine that you live in a world of pure negativity, everybody around you is full of darkness, and they hate you, and they they think you’re nothing, and they like to remind you of that, and you’re just surrounded by just really bad statements coming your way all the time.
And then somebody says something nice to you.
Like “Oh, I think you’re you’re a good person.
I like what you’re doing.
Thank you for your contribution.”
Says something that is very kind to you, even in a simple way, like “Oh, you’re not bad.”
Well, that would just be- it could be incredibly valuable.
I mean, it would certainly stand out.
Maybe with all the negativity maybe we’d have a hard time believing it, possibly, if we’re too steeped in the negativity.
But certainly, if that was the only positive thing we heard, then it would certainly really stand out, and it would have an opportunity to be very meaningful.
So that’s a case where if you imagine like this is the currency, if the currency is having this positive statement, and it’s the only one, surrounded by negativity, well, then that means a lot.
But then imagine the situation where you’re just surrounded by positive messages.
And this I think is closer to what we often see, at least when it comes to the the world of online content.
Of course, in personal lives, people can have all kinds of negativity and personal messages, but in the world of self-improvement, there’s a lot of positive messages going around.
So you can do it.
You’re wonderful.
You have greatness inside you.
Look at all the things you’ve already done.
You’ve come so far, I expect nothing but good things from you.
You are a really exceptional person.
You’re a wonderful person.
There’s so much goodness inside you.
There’s greatness- see, I already repeated the word greatness already.
So there just becomes too much of this.
And each of those statements is nice.
It can be a good message, and there’s a lot of good to it.
And maybe each of those statements can, if it hits just the right person at the right time, can actually really be meaningful.
But if we get surrounded by that, if we’re used to that, if we expect that, can reach the point where those statements become simply expected, where they lose their meaning because we just assume that everybody’s going to say them.
That’s why we have this phrase, calling them platitudes.
They’re simply platitudes.
They’re just things that you say to try to make people feel better, but it’s kind of just a standard, generic, offhand remark to try to cover up or dismiss anything that might be negative.
And you can just toss it out there.
“Oh, no, you’re wonderful.
Yeah, you’re a great person.
Just be happy with what you have.
You’re awesome, OK?”
So it can start to seem routine, automatic.
And that’s why I think of it as inflation, because it’s like the value of each of those statements goes down, and so that we don’t really feel the value.
We don’t feel the meaningfulness and the depth of feeling that could be there in each of those statements, possibly.
But once it starts to just become this assumed thing that surrounds us, we lose appreciation for it.
And it can eventually just reach the point of hyperinflation, where it’s almost worthless anymore.
We just lose respect entirely for the notion of positive thinking, and just dismiss it, assume it to all be lies, to all be empty.
So what can we do about this?
Well, I suppose one solution, if you’re surrounded by negativity, then I guess it would bring back some of that value of the positive statements.
But that doesn’t sound like a great solution.
But I think what it means to me is that maybe what we need overall is just less talking overall.
Less repeated messaging buzzing around our heads at all times.
So when we do make a statement, if we do say something, that it can actually be meaningful.
But I don’t have a clear solution to this one, so I would love to hear what you think.
Do you also notice this idea of inflation?
And what can we do about it?
#statementinflation #platitudes #emptypositivity