College students and positivity
What does it mean for a college student to be positive?
By Leilani Darling, with Richard Leon Linfield
Why do people, especially young people, relate well to positivity? Why do so many people think of positivity as a desirable goal and trait?
A person who understands positivity understands it more through their emotions than through their thoughts. Younger persons tend to be more open to positivity. They’ve had less time to get stuck in becoming what’s falsely known as “realistic.”
Positivity is an important concept because using it as a guideline helps people be more constructive, cooperative, compassionate.
If you’re positive, you can be a benefit to yourself and many other persons.
Positivity is a deep-down soul-felt quality that is an asset to any college student. It brings with it self-respect and respect for one’s fellow students. It helps a student be open to understanding the many unfamiliar concepts presented in college courses. It means that one believes in oneself and one’s abilities when the going gets tough.
Being consistently positive requires courage and commitment
If you assess yourself realistically, you’ll see that you can develop the courage and commitment to be motivated by happiness and positivity in all you do.
Avoiding the negative can require you to be courageous in the face of negative peer pressure. For example, in day-to-day society, those who won’t indulge in mockery or gossip may become unpopular. However, such people are building a better society through having clear consciences, and through teaching their peers and their children through example.
A positive person nips problems in the bud. Here’s a method you can try, from web writer Henrik Edberg:
“Nowadays, if I am faced with what I start to think is a problem I first shout or say in my mind: Stop! This helps me to not start building a mountain out of a molehill. I follow it up right away with asking myself: Who cares?
“I most often then realize that this isn’t really a problem in the long run at all. I sometimes also add this question to really drive the point home to myself and to let go of what I may at first have seen as a problem: Will this matter in 5 years? Or even 5 weeks? This combination tends to work really effectively.”
Some people only work with mental positivity. Others realize that there is a positivity that is more emotionally based and more powerful than the mental. “Positive thinking” is a good first step, yet in itself, it cannot make a person deeply positive. It’s better to feel positivity and not just think about it.
Many realize that positivity is a virtue because it has a deeply spiritual basis that comes from a person’s soul and higher consciousness. It is always of great value, because its source is what unites us all — the universal love or Divine Goodness that creates us.
Leilani Darling, J.D. and Richard Leon Linfield, Ph.D. are a writing team in New Mexico. She’s an attorney and the author of How to be Happy: The Shocking Truth. He’s a retired professor of English and philosophy who coaches college students and teachers in student success. Darling and Linfield have published a dynamic nonprofit website since 2007 with many resources helping college students: www.successincollegestudies.com. View it here and donate here. To subscribe to our newsletter about positive ways of creativity and more, click here.
