A false sense of positivity

"If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all" is a mantra that we have all heard and probably heard it from an early age.  There is for sure something to be said about positivity.  Certainly you want to have good manners, be nice and polite when you talk to people, after all we are civilized people.  The ideas of "Look on the bright-side" or "every cloud has a silver lining" are great notions but are they realistic?  Another music star apparently committed suicide today and while I didn't plan on mentioning this, I think it might be somewhat relative, that we can go on saying, thinking, believing that everything is fine, but at some point our garbage, our families garbage, or the world's garbage catches up with us and we finally realize that not everything is fine and we can't lie to ourselves anymore.

I'm a fan of encouragement and I have had players in the past that were really hard on themselves, had a lot of negative self-talk and body-language and it was great to work through that with them and see how much of a better teammate they could be, so I am an advocate of positivity, don't get me wrong.  So what do we do when our positivity is masks something else?  What do we do when a false sense of positivity is wrapped in deceit?  How do we handle lies that have been woven into a false sense of positivity?  When do the positive words we hear just become hypocrisy?  ...is it really better then to be positive and can we really call it that in those situations?  If this is what "positivity" can become, then I will take Truth everyday.

One of my issues has been that when I read a Jon Gordon book or listen to him speak, or see a Ziglar quote that one of my friends posts, sometimes it can just seem so empty.  I think the reason for that is they have the process a little backwards for me.  I think we get the "positive is the best way to go" idea first, and it is definitely a good way to go, but when I read some of this stuff...God (often described as Faith) comes in last; worst of all He is just kind of sprinkled in as a kind of light and sparkly topping on the cake, and I just don't think that's right.  Shouldn't He come first?  When we have issues, when we have problems, shouldn't we be working on the vertical relationship first?  I mean if we really believe that "I can do all things THROUGH him who GIVES me strength" I feel like that part should come first.  I want God to be at the forefront of what I do, not positive thinking.  

John Eldredge talks a lot about how one of the lies that we can believe as men is thinking that being a Christian man is basically about being a "nice guy".  He debunks this, obviously, and I won't get into very much of that here, but I have wondered recently if this isn't the new lie that we can believe.  That we need to always be positive, with a big smile on our faces and make everything seem likes it's ok and really going great.  So we cowardly walk around, ensuring people that everything is just fine and that there isn't this war going on in our minds and in our hearts and when people start to really struggle we ignore it and say "It will be ok, you need to think positive" while the whole time we don't pay attention to the real pain, anger and struggles that are really happening in our lives...where does that leave us?

I'm all about being positive, I think it is something that is necessary in our lives on a regular basis, just like we all need a good hug.  But when that "positivity" starts to cover up lies, deceit and hypocrisy, I don't want anything to do with it.  Let us deal with our garbage first...deal with it together...no more fake smiles and acting like everything is fine because that's how we are supposed to act...lets not ignore that life happens, bad things happen, that we struggle...lets give that stuff to God FIRST.