Accentuating the Negative

When I was a kid my mom would always get on us whenever we slacked on a particular chore -- like leaving our drinking glasses in the sink instead of rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher. But she never said anything on the days we DID rinse them and put them in the dishwasher. One day I called her on this and said, "You always notice and point out when we do something wrong. How come you don't do that when we do something right -- especially because we do the right thing way more often than the wrong thing?" She didn’t have an answer, and I think there’s a reason for that. It’s just the way we tend to be.

From my perspective, it seemed obvious that if she rewarded the good behavior more often, she'd get more of it. Only pointing out when we didn’t do it the right way and not praising us when we did pushed me towards a “why bother?” attitude. After all, it was easier to not comply and if it went unrecognized when I did -- well….

Apparently thousands of behavioral psychologists and others agree. Volumes have been written on the power of positive reinforcement. We can preach about the merits of frequent positive reinforcement, but we seem to have a hard time living it. It's as if we have a natural tendency to accentuate the negative. As parents we are quick to reprimand, but we often have to consciously remind ourselves to praise the good. And why is it that one C on a report card will get more attention than the four A’s that accompany it?

I've noticed lately that our thinking -- the collective "us" -- seems to be deeply ingrained and patterned to focus more attention and to give more weight to the negative. We love gossip -- the juicier the better. We glue ourselves to reality shows comprised almost entirely of people treating each other badly. We immerse ourselves in unhappy news on the television, online and in print. We are quick to judge and criticize each other while overlooking accomplishments and appealing qualities. No wonder there is such a high rate of depression in our society.

What if we stopped? What if for any negative comment or thought we had about someone else, we balanced it with a positive? What if anytime we judged another person, we bestowed upon them an equally weighted kudo? I think if we did this on a regular basis, our relationships would improve, our criticalness would dissipate and eventually the world -- certainly our own world -- would be a better place.

Let's accentuate the positive.

Marking Time

I wrote this as a message to friends and family several months ago, prompted by my daughter's distress over the untimely death of a high school friend. I think it bears repeating here.

Life can be very, very short. We only each have so many days here on earth. And none of us know how many days those are. At the end of each day, we have one less day until the end. One less day.

And so, with those unknown numbered precious days, it becomes very important that at the end of each day we know -- I know -- that it wasn’t a day wasted. Wasted in boredom, wasted in indifference, wasted in complaining about things that are trivial in the “grand scheme" of it all, wasted in being angry, wasted in wanting what I do not or cannot have or create, wasted in failing to pay attention to and enjoy every moment of that precious day.

I’ve made a vow to myself -- that is admittedly sometimes difficult to keep, because I am human after all -- that at the end of each day (knowing that the end of the day means I have one less day on earth) I will be able to honestly say: “Today was a good day. Today was a full day, a productive day, a day that was personally satisfying. Today was worth "giving up" because today I made a real contribution. Today I made a difference. Today I didn’t just mark time.”

This is how I believe we should spend each precious day.