A Prick in the Brain

The problem with being a negative person is that our brains our loud. Our voices can be quiet, but our thoughts can be thunderous.

A negative person, like me, tends to have a running stream of excuses and bitterness running through our head. And any time somebody says something (either encouraging or challenging) to help us take another step forward in the pursuit of true life, that comment has to swim up the river of acid like a salmon. Except that most encouragements or challenges in love aren't salmon, they're truth, and truth doesn't always swim well up the river.

If you ever take a marketing or advertising class in college, they always tell you that your product you are trying to sell is competing against an ever-growing population of competitors: time, money, peer pressure, similar products from other companies, Facebook, etc.

The same goes for speaking truth to a negative person. You are competing against a collection (often years worth) of experiences, fears, personal theologies (not biblical, but a theology based on "I'm right and I'm the center of my universe."), perceptions, and that person's lifelong pursuit of comfort.

So when you try to speak truth to a negative person and tell them that they are or are capable of anything besides what they believe -- you face an upriver battle.

For instance, I'm an arrogant pessimist who, from an early age, decided that low expectations of myself=safety. So over 10+ years, my river has swelled over the banks with a catalog of comments, barbs, sarcasm, or "truths" that I can use against any friend who would try to build me up, encourage me, or challenge me to take risks so that I can live a life worth living.

The problem is that there is a little, arrogant, prick that lives in my brain. He's a fiesty little bastard. He looks like the me that I think I look like. The closer I get to God though, the more I see that the l.a.p. in my brain looks nothing like me. He is who I choose to dress up as when I don't want to be afraid. L.a.p. is who I want to be so that I don't have to take risks or face truth -- facing truth and then living life by it, is the biggest risk most of us will ever run away from.

L.a.p. controls the river. He feeds it. He's cultivated it like a beautiful, twisted, park. See the river in a negative person's head isn't like that river from the Fellowship of the Ring (you know, the one that wipes out those creepy, hooded guys on the horses.) The river is a slowly growing and organic thing. It was built by slowly and patiently dropping little comments and failures into it over the years. At first it was nothing; a spilled glass of water. Now it's like the mighty, Mississippi. It grew over time through simplicity and repetition.

Bad grade on a test? "You suck," I mumble to myself. Drop it in the river.

Get ignored by a girl? "You are a loser," I think. Drop it in the river.

Unable to keep up with the real men when they play football? "You are a wimp," I whisper. Drop it in the river.

Over time, the experiences and "truths" that I believe to be the reality of who I am make a formidable obstacle for anybody who attempts to walk with me to greener pastures, bluer skies, and hope. People will attempt to get a message up the river, but the l.a.p. has built it well and messages get lost in the roaring rapids. People may try again and again. Some people will give up and stop trying to send a message up that river. "Let's move on to fertile soils," they say.

I don't blame them. Could you?

You get cut off from the outside world. You live in your little kingdom at the top of this river. Just you and the l.a.p. in your brain. Kings of an insignificant kingdom. Anybody who didn't want to play by your rules stopped trying to come into your house years ago. The welcome sign is rusted and grown over with weeds.

So what is a negative person to do? What do I do?

I could attack the river. I could stand on the shores with a bucket and scoop out what I can, throw it aside, and after 100 years, not have made a dent. The river would still grow because the l.a.p at the top with the cardboard crown would still find failures to feed this river.

I could kill the l.a.p. I could just stop giving him things to feed the river, starve him, and bury him somewhere in the mountains. But he'd be hard to starve. He feeds on failure and insecurity and if I want to live, then I have to risk. Risk incures it's fair share of failures and opportunities for insecurity. And the river can feed him. That l.a.p. doesn't need fresh food to survive, old memories and bad habits would suffice.

So what do I do? What can I do?

When I figure out my next step, I'll let you know.