Filter Coffee #142

On Negativity

Atlanta, GA

• Prabha Prasad comments: “As for me, I see no difference between dreaming in waking moments & daydreaming. I guess every human being does it. The ones caught in the class by the teachers for daydreaming would surely remember.  As for walking in sleep, I definitely appreciate you not linking it with somnambulism. Well, lying in your bed wide awake when nobody is noticing you — you have the absolute privacy to fantasise about your future projects.

  Not just that! For me, thinking of mundane planning for the menu of the next day’s meals happens then. That done, I fall asleep blissfully.”

• Ashok Barimar says: “Hi Prasanna, your dose of ‘Filter Coffee’ is invigorating. I liked the subtle differences between ‘daydreaming’ and ‘dreaming in our waking moments’”

Thank you both for your kind words of encouragement. I request my other readers to please share their comments or views.

I am looking forward to my maiden visit to Mexico, albeit for a day’s business purpose. I’ll be visiting the small industrial town of León, Guanajuato. 

😥 Negativity

Is it an attitude or a kind of mental disposition? Is it a form of pessimism or a state of denial?

Well, it can be some of these or all of them, depending on the person and the circumstances.

Negativity manifests in the thinking of a person about someone or something. It can be a simple lack of motivation and a lack of belief in an outcome. Arithmetically, two negatives make a positive, but two negative minds may positively come to the same conclusion about someone or something. If a person’s outlook is negative, it is quite possible that a friend of his with a positive bent of mind may help him negate that negativity, if not get rid of it altogether. We are all familiar with the phrase positive reinforcement, which is often a tool used to help a person overcome his fear of failure or negative consequences.

It is pretty important to recognise a person’s negative behaviour or attitude, particularly if you are associated with him transactionally. Your associate’s negativity may manifest in his reluctance to take risks that may be inevitable in any venture. Even if you assure him that the risk is minimal and worth taking, he would let you decide and take ownership of managing that risk.

Negativity may well have some positive effect on the decision-making process. Fears are expressed, suspicions are aired and downsides are simulated, but instead of dismissing these apprehensions if one were to evaluate them with some seriousness, it may aid the decision-making process. Shall we say, one could realise the positive benefits of negativity? Or, should we say, negativity tempers the impulsiveness or brings to the fore any irrationality that may be manifest in being absolutely positive?

Frequent criticism or doubting a person’s abilities or opinions may induce negativity in that person, leading to erosion of self-confidence. This kind of beratement may dissuade or disincentivise the person from giving his opinion or expressing his views. Transferred fears may also induce negativity.

Fault-finding is another dimension of negativity. A person with a negative attitude will find fault in almost everything or everyone around him, and this stems from his own inability to be trusting and believing that life is full of fault lines.

In my time as a General Counsel, I have come across business leaders who have shied away from making bold decisions as they feared not just failure, but a loss of face if things went awry.

Some of these leaders qualified their business case with caveats, underscored the risks even if remote, and felt comfortable if someone or a team decided to pursue a business opportunity.

The AA or AAA battery is a good example of how negative and positive elements must co-exist in order to produce energy for a purpose. A person who professes to possess a positive bent of mind would do well to pause and reflect on the consequences and take into consideration the apprehensions and fears that his colleague may express. 

Positive reinforcement can help a person overcome his negativity bias. Take, for instance, a person’s performance appraisal. The appraiser who has no ill feelings towards the appraisee rates the performance favourably but identifies areas where there is scope for improvement.

The appraisee can have misgivings about the need to improve, and he focuses on those comments rather than the favourable ratings that he got in other areas of his performance. A tactful appraiser would normally appreciate the performance wherever it is due and have a general discussion on how he can assist the appraisee to assume higher responsibilities and identify the training needs. 

I have been both an appraiser and an appraisee during my career. The initial misgivings I had as an appraisee actually helped me to be more cautious in my role as an appraiser. I could relate to the feelings of an appraisee who did not get a rating better than his colleague. Somehow, as he left my room, I could see his shoulders sagging regardless of the positive attributes that I spoke highly of. 

A mentor can help a person overcome a person’s tentativeness and become more confident of his abilities. Any inferiority complex a person may have can be overcome with good mentoring.

Negative feelings may have their roots in a lack of understanding and knowledge. 

A simple case in point is the Mentor-Mentee interaction facilitated by Pratham Mysore. A girl in a remote village who has hardly seen a city, and who is unaware of the larger world she lives in, becomes an informed person and gradually becomes aware of various aspects of life through knowledge-building sessions between her and her Mentor. I can vouch for this, as I have witnessed the way my wife, as the mentor to a mentee in a village, has helped that girl morph into a more self-confident and well-informed person. I, too, am a Mentor to one such girl, but I am yet to make the kind of progress I would have liked to, given my various other commitments. But many Mentors of Pratham Mysore have done a remarkable job of shaping the thinking of the girls and boys in the nearby villages and infusing confidence and self-belief in them.

If you wish to know more or if you want to be a mentor to a small-town boy or girl, please visit 🔗Pratham Mysore or write to  ashviniranjan@yahoo.com. You can be a change-maker, which means dispelling negative notions and reinforcing self-belief and a positive attitude. You can do mentorship from the comfort of your home or office for just one hour each week, typically on a Saturday or Sunday after school hours.

We are all used to being, at times though, condescending or overbearing when another person is either hesitant to voice an opinion or if he does, it becomes a matter of ridicule. It is in such circumstances that we display our negative bent of mind by using certain phrases like “Can’t you think straight?” or “What rubbish you talk!” etc. If someone said something which is in the realm of illogic, it is better to say “Hmm… that’s an interesting observation” or “What you say is at variance with my views, but I am happy to mull over it.” This helps you display a positive attitude.

We may unwittingly say something to a person which may be hurtful or offending his sensibilities but cover it up by saying “Hey, can’t you take a joke?”. I came across a list of negative and positive humour in 🔗The High Cost of Negative Humor - The Systems Thinker. I urge you to read the whole article. For ease of quick understanding of negative & positive humour, I have extracted this table from that article.

I am no expert to be able to discuss the effects of negativity, but all of us can become adept at being positive, regardless of the circumstances or the persons involved. I welcome your comments and your views based on your own observations and experience. I assure you that I will receive them with positivity. Now, in a lighter vein:

John Travolta tested negative for COVID last night.

 Turns out it was just Saturday Night Fever!

Take care, my friends, and be safe! Ciao.