If you struggle with seeing the positive side of things, you cannot have a healthy perspective on life. We cannot survive in this world or be the best that we can be without first being positive.

Carrying negativity is like an emptiness that seems too dark and vast. If you are swimming in it, you can’t see anything past it. What you are doing and keep on doing when you decide to see just the half-empty glass is twisting the knife. Over and over again.

I say ‘decide’ because you get to decide how you feel at every moment of your life.

Being positive makes us winners every time.

The other day I was astonished by someone’s positivity.

Imagine having a terminal illness and yet you fly all the way from the United States to Ethiopia (that is where I am) and be there for a person you’ve raised as your own daughter.

Imagine being physically ill and yet push yourself to see your daughter who is going to have a baby.

Imagine the world where everything is dark – because you are terribly sick and yet you make yourself see the beauty in an impossible situation.

I know this person. She is my mom’s best friend and she is here in Ethiopia for just a few weeks because the person she raised as her own daughter is going to have a baby in a few days.

Even though she was in a hospital in the States (she is taking Chemotherapy for advanced cancer), she came to see her daughter give birth against her Doctor’s advice.

As soon as she touched the land of Ethiopia she was rushed to a hospital where they have to do lots of things to make her healthy and strong enough for her stay here.

Can you imagine showing your love when a sinister disease is attacking you mercilessly and yet you manage to travel many miles( 8,176 miles to be exact) to see someone you love(when everything around you is failing you including your own body)?

That is love.

That is light.

This is what positivity feels like.

It is like a dark room has been illuminated by a hundred electric bulbs all at once.

That is what I felt when I spent a few hours yesterday with this wonderful lady at her home.

You don’t see the disease. You see the strength behind the person.

Yes, you see the pain and the anguish in the physical body- like her body is failing – but not the spirit. You see nothing can touch the human spirit. Not even this terrible disease.

You don’t see darkness. You see light.

May you be a lamplighter who flicks a light in cloudy dark dawn.

May you choose love over hate.

May you choose to see the silver lining in difficult situations.

May you choose light over darkness.

May you choose positivity over negativity.

Related link: 10 Unique Qualities Every Positive Person Should Have! and Negativity Is An Addiction.

To your inspirations,

Banchi